An astonishing old calculator - Numberphile
This machine is from 1965. The acoustic memory is new to me. Here's one that uses air to store the bits of data. I enjoy seeing how people have combined apparently incompatible technologies to build new devices with new capabilities, like the Tektronix R7912.
2 comments:
Wow, that's fascinating and cool. I know my dad talked about the first calculators being the size of a desk (he was a geologist/geohydrologist and sometimes did complicated calculations; I wonder if he used one of those in his early days as a researcher)
I never saw one. I encountered a few of the elaborate mechanical calculators, but until I started studying computers, I never saw anything with a screen. Probably because they were kept behind high walls designed to keep the riff-raff out.
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