I used to divide by 0 all the time on the Marchant calculators. They could be unwedged, though I can't quite remember how. Maybe there was a Stop key. -- Gene
________________________________ From: rkg <rkg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca> To: math-fun <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 1:43 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] "Steampunk" mathematics?
I had the same experience 60 years ago in Singapore. The machine couldn't be used. You had to send for the man! R.
On Thu, 11 Sep 2014, James Propp wrote:
(This story isn't really relevant, but it comes to mind, and it isn't one I've told before.)
When I was a boy and my father worked as a lawyer in Manhattan, he would sometimes let me visit his office. There were some electro-mechanical calculators there, but one was the crown jewel: in addition to addition, subtraction, and multiplication, it could also do ... division!
One evening I did what any curious proto-mathematician would do, and tasked it with dividing something by 0.
Ka-CHUNK! Ka-CHUNK! Ka-CHUNK! It began printing out repeated subtractions, advancing the platen several times a second.
I quickly shut it off. When I turned it on, it resumed the calculation. Ka-CHUNK! Ka-CHUNK! Ka-CHUNK! I shut it off again and left the room.
I assume that the next person who turned the calculator on got a nasty surprise.
I have no idea what might have eventually been required to reset the device and make it useable again.
Jim Propp
On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 4:12 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
I guess the Galton box qualifies as a mechanical calculator for a Gaussian:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean_machine
Also, Fredkin's billiard ball computer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billiard-ball_computer
And then there's those wonderful 1960's mechanical desktop "calculators"; I recall seeing one in the 1950's multiply two large numbers; they were amazing to watch!
Some of IBM's early punch card machines were deliciously electromechanical, with grease everywhere. Also, some of their disk drives and printers I used in the 1960's had _hydraulic_ mechanisms; the IBM CE's looked more like car mechanics than computer engineers!
At 11:39 AM 9/11/2014, Dave Dyer wrote:
I nominate Turing's analog computer to find zeta function zeros, described in the Hodges biography.
Also, obviously, the concept of physically realizing Turing machines using punched tape and mechanical reader/writer mechanisms.
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