Calculators' Pages

email : [email protected].

Calculator

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, 1913
(Cal "cu*la*tor) n. [L.: cf. F. calculateur.] One who computes or reckons: one who estimates or considers the force and effect of causes, with a view to form a correct estimate of the effects.

This site is dedicated to the late Tadeusz Kabzinski, a teacher and a friend who brought to life most of these calculators.

I guess I got a calculator bug a few years ago. Over the years this bug became a monster, slowly it took over from one book shelve, the whole bookcase, than two, three… Now it is taking over one of the bedrooms and part of the hallway, and it is still creeping…

When I tried to create the presentation of my collection, I came to the conclusion that the most logical way would be to follow THE BOOK – The Calculating Machines (Rechenmaschinen) by Ernst Martin (1925). On the following pages you will find all my collection (OK, almost all). Click on the machine below to see the full collection or go down to view any particular machine.

I precede the machines from the collection with corresponding pages from Martin. Some of the computing devices were not in Martin, so I put them towards the end. You will find a few very interesting pieces there.

Martin organized his book by the first production year of each manufacturer.

After I did it all I came to the conclusion that it would be very interesting to create an annotated and illustrated book by Martin on the WEB. This project did not go anywhere till Herbert Schneemann looked at my website. He wrote that he would be interested in helping building the site based on THE BOOK. He did not know then that it would be me rather helping him in this undertaking. We got permission from MIT Press to put Martin’s book on our site www.rechenmaschinen-illustrated.com. If you want to help in building this site please email me: [email protected] or Herbert: [email protected] .

Collection:

Odhner Type (Pinwheel) Calculating Machines	Step Drum Calculating Machines	Adding Machines
Brunsviga B ser 980 [1] Brunsviga B – la Rapide ser 2k[2] Brunsviga B ser 6846 Brunsviga B ser 11364 [3] Brunsviga B ser 12431 TrinksBrunsviga B ser 29579 TrinksBrunsviga B ser 35204 TrinksBrunsviga B ser 47578 Brunsviga A ser 1725 [4] Brunsviga A ser 14462 TrinksBrunsviga J 13054 Brunsviga Midget 16282 TrinksBrunsviga M ser 37881 [5] TrinksBrunsviga M ser 45740 TrinksBrunsviga MA ser 29579 [6] TrinksBrunsviga MJR ser 40565[7] Brunsviga Trinks MH ser 64352 [8] TrinksBrunsviga MR ser 46506 [9] TrinksBrunsviga MR ser 52000 TrinksBrunsviga MD ser 54000 [10] TrinksTriplex ser 30395 [11] TrinksTriplex ser 62837 Brunsviga Nova MII ser 89718 Brunsviga MIII ser 101771 Brunsviga13 ser 115176 Brunsviga 13 ser 131384 Brunsviga 13P ser 167125 Brunsviga 13ZN ser 137341 Brunsviga 13ZK ser 176830 Brunsviga 15 ser 202966 Brunsviga 10 ser 157933 BrunsvigaDuplex 13Z ser 213592 Chateau Ser 9026 Dactyle 7x6x10 ser 10874 Felix A2 ser1734 [12] Felix Posing As Original Odhner [13] Early Dead Felix Felix From Kursk Facit Standard 2 ser 5715 [14] Facit Standard 10 ser 11145 Facit Standard10 ser 11393 Facit T ser 16764 Mesko Facit Licence Goldsmidt ser 6523 Hannovera CK ser 12339 (non Odhner design) Kirja 9x8x13 ser 1136 Lipsia A ser 1769 Marchant ser 2058 [15] Mercedes-Melitta ser 2703 Mira 6x5x10 Mira 9x8x13 ser 5399 Muldivo ser 7673[16] Mira 3 ser 5491 Odhner Arithmometer ser 1341[17] Original Odhner A Ser 12309 [18] Odhner Arithmometr Ag ser15046 Original Odhner 9x8x13 ser 38146 Original Odhner Arithmos I ser 40085 [19] Original Odhner 9 5x5x9 ser 60385 [20] Original Odhner 9 10x8x13 ser 74669 Original Odhner 6 ser 80521 retractable Butterflies Original Odhner 14 ser 88684 Original Odhner 11 10x11x20 year 1925 Original Odhner 30 ser 102000 Retractable Arms Original Odhner 24 ser 295628 Odhner Doppel (135?) Prometeus Portable ser 0034 [21] Rapid Calculator ser 1224 Rema ser 5103 Thales ser 53 [22] Thales [23] Thales ser 11000 Thales M ser 29783 Thales MEZ ser 49419 Thales ser 53026 Thales AE ser 48673 Thales GEO Triumphator A ser 7k Triumphator C [24] Triumphator C ser 43673 Triumphator A Triumphator A ser 43219 Triumphator H ser 55939 Triumphator HZN Triumphator CN ser 113763 Walther 6x6x10 Walther 10x8x13	Archimedes C Burkhard ser 342 Burkhard ser 461 Curta 1 ser 46534 [25] Curta 1 ser 60262 Curta 2 ser 501496[26] Curta 2 Madas ser 7871 [27] Madas ser 11381 Peerless Peerless Baby Rheinmetall Saxonia Tim 4 Tim 7	Adder ser 6601 Adix Model 1 Adix Model 1 with 10 addition Diera Addac Addi 7 ser 22640 Addi 7 with Printer American Adding Machine ser 4000 Resulta BS7 and 9 Spezial Staffel Adding Machine Year 1842 [28] Star Adding Machine ser 31731 Addometer and Other Baum Bohnam And Schram Year 1905 And Other [29] Calcumeter ser 15213 and GraphicCalculator Calcumeters with and without reset Brical Weight Adding Machine [30] Webb A ser 5625 [31] Webb Victor Webb The Adder 1889 patent Basset Adder No 1 Golden Gem BUG ser 2694 Comptator ser 1948 Comptator ser 8020[32] Comptator ser 21232 Comptator ser 20417 Goldman Arithstyle ser 11604 Rapid Computer ser 6303 [33] Stima Summator ser 1612 SuN ser 3887 SuN ser 6381[34] Burroughs Calculator [35] Burrougs Calculator ser 258391 Direct II Torpedo [36]

Direct Multiplication Machine:

· Millionaire ser 1481[37]

Proportional Displacement Machines:

· Mercedes Euclid 4

· Mercedes Euclid

· Mercedes Euclid 29

Stepped Keyboard Machine:

· Monroe

Geared Wheel Machine:

· Hamann Manus ser 2722

Miscellaneous Calculating Devices (these are not machines):

· Abacus Japaneese

· Abacus Chinese

· Arithmographe Troncet

· Calculimetre G. Charpentier

· Canivet sector

· Consul The Educated Monkey[38]

· Correntator

· Eureka[39]

· Hexadat

· Keuffel & Esser slide rule model 100

· Kopernik

· Let's Add[40]

· Locke Adder year 1901 model

· Multiplying Table

· Octadat

· Omega Bamberger

· Palmer Pocket Scale

· The Ribbon Adder[41]

· Totalisateur Troncet[42]

New additions (the pictures will be integrated later, who knows when ;((( ):

· Abacus – Japanese (?) (Lady’s?)

· Abacus – Chinese (porcelain)

· Addac

· Arithmographe Troncet

· Baby Peerless

· Brunsviga Midget 16282

· Burkhard ser 342

· Calculimetre G. Charpentier

· Canivet sector

· Complete list of early Brunsvigas

· Comptator ser 8020

· Dactyle 7x6x10 ser 10874

· Diera

· Goldman Arithstyle ser 11604

· Hexadat

· Keuffel & Esser slide rule model 100.

· Kirja 9x8x13 ser 1136

· La Rapide – Brunsviga model B

· Locke Adder year 1901 model

· Mercedes-Melitta ser 2703

· Mira 6x5x10

· Mira 9x8x13 ser 5399

· Muldivo ser 7673

· Octadat

· Odhner Arithmometer ser 1341

· Original Odhner (Soviet) 9x8x13 ser 38146

· Odhner Doppel (grey model)

· Palmer’s Pocket Scale

· Rapid Calculator

· Saxonia

· SuN ser 6381 (British currency model)

· Thales Geo

· TrinksBrunsviga J ser 13054

· TrinksBrunsviga MJR ser 40565

· Triumphator A ser 7k

· Turck – “Origin of Modern Calculating Machines”

· Webb The Adder patent 1889

Age list (all of this information with exception of list of early Brunsviga models and serial numbers for Facit calculators comes from Reese book):

· Diagram of history manufacturing of mechanical calculators.

· Years different companies were in business.

· Early Brunsviga models.

· Brunsviga serial numbers.

· Triumphator serial numbers.

· Lipsia serial numbers.

· Facit serial numbers.

· Hannovera serial numbers.

· Mira serial numbers.

· Walther serial numbers.

Ernst Martin book “Calculating Machines” you can find at www.rechenmaschinen-illustrated.com. This site adds value to Martin’s book by adding pictures, articles and some other information.

Visit hpmuseum site to find out how these machines work.

Visit “Original Documents on the History of Calculators” to find documents related to calculating devices.

Visit Michel Bardel's web site to see the list of thousands of calculators. It is invaluable source of the information.

Josef Balsach created a very beautiful book about the calculating devices. You can find it on personal.telefonica.terra.es/web/calculating/. You will find pictures and description of many very interesting devices there.

There is a new web site www.rechnerlexikon.de, in German, there is also English navigation there. They are trying to create as big catalogue of machine as they can. The site has interesting articles and pointers to the patents of many different machines.

Another very interesting place is Reinhard Atzbach’s web site. Reinhard has a very interesting and educative way to present different machines. It is in German. I was using http://world.altavista.com/ to translate these pages. You can also use google translation features or their toolbar.

I am looking for the information about Stern, Staffel and Slonimski machines. If you know about any surviving ones or have their pictures please email.

Credits:

· All these machines are in my collection except Staffel, which belongs to the Museum of Science and Technology in Warsaw, Poland. I do not own the portrait of Abraham Stern with his machine either.

· THANKS to my wife Irena for understanding…

· Thanks to my daughter Monika for consulting on how to do WEB pages.

· I am most grateful to Mr Tadeusz Kabzinski. He was a fantastic person and a mechanical genius. He loved the old office equipment which he has been repairing for the last 57 years in his own small repair shop in Warsaw, Poland. He offered me his friendship, and he brought many of my machines back to life. I learned a lot of things from him. I guess I would never have gotten this far with the collection if not for his wonderful personality and his incredible skills.

· For the idea of how to set up the website, I am especially grateful to a very good friend of mine and a great artist – Piotr Kaczmarek. He also designed (and coded) our professional website www.szrek.com.

· Over the years I learned a lot from my fellow collectors. I am especially grateful to Thorsten Hampel who taught me a lot of things. He has a beautiful collection. I hope I can see it one day in person.

· Ernst Martin’s book is available as a both Xerox copy and Adobe Acrobat file (.pdf) from MIT bookstore. It is the best and the most interesting book on this subject.

· A lot of information about production years for different machines, and a beautiful diagram about the evolution of the machines come from Martin Reese book. This book is full of information. Unfortunately you need to know German to understand it all. I do not know German ;(((

· I learned of the article about the Staffel machine from Timo Leipala, who also provided me with a lot of other invaluable information.

· Serial numbers for the Facit machines I found on Facit page. You will find a lot of interesting information there. Look at their album. It is FANTASTIC!!! You can find a lot of information about Facit calculators in Christopher Nöring page.

· Victor machine’s instructions I found in the jmgoldman collection. I always enjoy looking at these toys.

· Webb patent drawings I found on the WEB. Unfortunately I do not remember where ;((((

· List of Early Brunsvigas, which is extremely interesting, I received it initially from one of the fellow collectors. The complete list I received from Freddy Haeghens. Internationales Forum Historische Bürowelt compiled this list. In April 2004 IFHB published the most complete book/catalogue of calculating machines.

· Portrait by Antoni Blank of Abraham Stern’s comes from the book “Zydzi Polscy” (Polish Jews).

· Almost all of the photos were taken by me. In a few cases I used pictures of my machines from ebay.

Last revised: 21-June-2004

---

[1] Brunsviga B serial 980 is 894-1895 model. This machine is a so called Schuster machine. One can recognize it from two holes after Schuster logo (with hand) that used to be around Brunsviga logo. Schuster was selling these machines. This machine has clearing mechanism and decimal points. This mechanism was added later. I suspect circa 1910-1920. Unfortunately patent information was painted over at this time. All early Brunsviga models had patent information on the left side. The fewer patents - the more valuable for the collector (except of the number 0 as in my case ;(((). Brunsviga with serial number 220 had 3 patent numbers. This model still did not have a carry mechanism above 10-th position. This mechanism was introduced around 1900. The other model with serial no 6846 has it. The earliest known example of Brunsviga B with a short crank and serial no 73 was sold at Breker auction in November 2002 for Euro 6,000. This model had a short crank. There were only 600 of those made. Short crank Brunsviga looks very similar to Odhner Arithmometer with serial number 1341.

[2] Brunsviga was selling its calculators in France under the name La Rapide and Brunsvigula. This model is from 1898.

[3] Brunsviga B ser 11364 has already a clearing butterfly on the left side for the setting register (levers). This clearing mechanism was introduced by an engineer Trinks.

[4] Brunsviga A ser 1725 is an 1896-1897 model with 18 digits precision. This model is quite rare. It still does not have a carry above 10-th position.

[5] Brunsviga M is a miniature version of Brunsviga B

[6] Brunsviga MA is a miniature version of Brunsviga A

[7] Brunsviga MJR is a very interesting machine. In “standard” Odhner machine levers rotate when any arithmetical operation is performed. In MJR the levels are stationary -they disengage when any arithmetical operation is done,

[8] Brunsviga MH is an interesting machine. It has two rotation registers. One (the top one) does a carry, the bottom one as the older models goes into red digits range instead of doing the carry to the next decimal position.

[9] Brunsviga MR has a very interesting mechanical design. It is a split carriage, result register moves, rotation register is fixed.

[10] Brunsviga MD has 20 digits output (result register). Relatively scarce model.

[11] Trinks Triplex is one of my favorite machines: this machine may work as 3 different machines: 20x12x20 or 12x12x12 and 8x12x8. Depending on the lever position on the right side of the carriage it will be either 20x12x20 or the other two machines. In the second case the carry in the result register does not carry between 12-th and thirteenth position. The other machine is very similar, with the exception that it has an additional register like model MH.

[12] This is a very rare model of Felix. It is made out of copper like Odhner machines manufactured in St. Petersburg, and apparently before they started saving on the components using low quality composite components. If you want to see old Russian and Soviet mechanical calculators visit Sergei Frolov page.

[13] Apparently Original Odhner name was used in Moscow factory in the early thirties for Felix machines. The machine, inside, is no different than the following Felix machine made in Feliks Dzierzynski factory in Moscow. Dzierzynski organized Cheka (predecessor of KGB).

[14] Facit standard introduced a very special feature: it has a tabulator to shift the carriage to a specific decimal position. I did not see this feature in any other machine.

[15] This model of Marchant is an early model. It resembles a lot an Original Odhner machines (like Chateau, Goldsmidt…). It does not have the setting register on the top.

[16] Muldivo looks like Chateau , Dactyl, Goldsmidt and early Marchant. Muldivo was a reseller of other machines, which have been resold under the name Muldivo. This machine is probably an early Chateau. It was made for an English market.

[17] This Odhner is one of the most sought after machines. It has a short crank. Around 3,000 Odhners with short crank were manufactured. This machine was manufactured in 1898-1899. To see more Odhner machines visit Odhner Calculator Family tree and Kevin Odhner page.

[18] After Odhner patent expired Odhner changed the name of the machine to Original Odhner. This Original Odhner is one of the first Original Odhners. It still does not have a clearing register. This machine was made in 1906-1907.

[19] After the WWI Odhner or rather a nephew of “Original Odhner” moved to Sweden (after Russian Revolution) he set up a factory in Göteborg and started making Odhner Arithmos. This is one of the first models. It has a serial no 40085. Production started with 40000.

[20] Odhner 5x5x9 is a very rare machine. It was made as a “cheap” machine, there is no mechanism for “controlled” decimal shift of carriage, and it has only 5 positions in the setting and rotation register. This machine was model 9. It was short lived and another machine was introduced as model 9.

[21] Prometeus is a very rare and nice machine. I am not sure if it was ever in production. Prometeus was a factory manufacturing slide rules.

[22] This is one of the earliest Thales machines (serial 53). It does not have a mechanism for decimal shift of the carriage.

[23] This model of Thales and the next machine are special. Instead of having a decimal shift left and right, it has a spring on the back that moves the carriage “automatically” by one position left. Like if it was made specially to facilitate division operation. Very unusual feature.

[24] Early Triumphator machines were quite heavy. This model C weights only 15 kilos (just a little over 31 pounds). Like other early Triumphators it has a decal with a factory logo on the back.

[25] Curta is one of the nicest machines ever made. There are collectors collecting only Curta calculators. These are relatively new machines, from 1948 and later. If you want to know more about Curta calculators visit Curta Page

[26] This is one of the first Curta 2. It has serial no 501496. Curta 2 started with serial no 500,000. It is very similar to Curta 1, it has more capacity.

[27] Madas machines as well as Mercedes-Euclid and Hammann-Manus were doing automatic division (within this collection). Madas and Millionaire were manufactured by Egli in Switzerland.

[28] Staffel was an inventor and a clockmaker. He made few different machines (I know of 3 different ones). At least one survived. This machine belongs to the Museum of Science and Technology Warsaw, Poland. You need to call for an appointment to see it. It is not on the permanent exhibit. One of his machines won a 1st prize on the world exhibit in London in 1851. Thomas de Colmar was very disappointed because his machine did not get the award. This event mobilized him to set up a production of his machine.

[29] Bohnam and Schram (1905) was the first model of this type of calculator, it is relatively rare. Other machines are Calculator Corporation and Lightning Corporation.

[30] Brical machine does not use a decimal arithmetic. There were many different calculating devices that would not use decimal arithmetic. English money is particularly “painful”. In one machine there might be up to 4 different calculating bases: farthings (base 4), pennies (base 12), shillings (base 20) and pounds (base 10). In this collection one of the SuN adding machines, one of the Comptators and Addometer are also using non-decimal arithmetic. See article by Friederich Diestelkamp on non-decimal calculating devices. There were also devices that claimed to do multiple basis arithmetic at the same time. Ribbon Adder is an example of such device. Freddy Haeghens sent me a picture of his Lucid (Odhner made for UK market). I cannot figure out how this device does multiplication. If you have instructions for this machine please send me a copy.

[31] WEBB was the first US calculator built in relatively large quantities. There were several different models. You can learn more about them on WEBB adders page.

[32] British currency model

[33] Rapid Computer (1895) was the first popular machine of this type. There were many improved machines of this type manufactured in Germany: Comptator, BuG, Summator, SuN…

[34] British currency model.

[35] This model is very similar to Comptometer. It is a very nice machine. If you want to learn more about Burroughs visit Burroughs Home Page to learn more about Comptometer visit Comptometer Page.

[36] Torpedo uses only keys 1 through 5 to enter number 1 through 9. One had to push 4 and 5 to add 9. This kind of set up was supposedly saving on the hand movement and it was easier for operator of this machine.

[37] Direct multiplication machines are very special. There were a few different ones: Bollée (this was the first one, designed by the French industrialist Bollé at the end of XIX century, you can see it in CNAM in Paris). There were also other ones: Kuhrt, Moon-Hopkins and Millionaire. To learn more about Millionaire read the article by Jim McDermaid.

[38] Consul the Educated Monkey is an educational toy to teach children multiplication tables (1916?)

[39] Eureka is an educational toy (France 1890) to teach children multiplication tables.

[40] This little piggy is an educational toy to teach children add numbers 1 through 5 (US 1930-ies?)

[41] This is actually an advertisement for this calculator. Look how the numbers to be added change from 1 till 20. Inventor advertised this machine will do any number based calculations: British sterling, decimal and fractions…

[42] Totalisateur Troncet was used to add numbers up to 99, and in sous (5 franks) up to 500. made by Larousse in 1880-ies.