The Curta Calculator

It's hard to find more desirable and satisfying (in a tactile sort of way) mechanical fetish item from the age of early computing...


For years Curta calculators enjoyed a cult status among collectors, and as recently as in 2003 they were featured in William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition" book. However, I daresay, not featured enough. This marvel of mechanical engineering should be given more exposure, especially given the bizarre and spooky circumstances of its origin.




Entirely mechanical, no electricity or batteries involved.
- Designed by Curt Herzstark in 1938 and perfected inside a concentration camp.
- Considered to be the most efficient portable calculator (until electronic calculators came in the 70s)
- Simply a thing of beauty, stunning piece of engineering art.


Take this glorified pepper-grinder shape in your hand, set the multiple sliders and turn the computing handle - and this groovy gadget starts to make a wizzing, almost musical sound. There is no electricity, wires, or batteries! Just a sophisticated package of miniature cogs and parts, that is a joy to disassemble and put together again...

Generally an arithmometer with multiple cogs and stepped drum mechanism, there is however a lot to disassemble. See a poster of all the parts inside, available for purchase on this site (the most comprehensive we could find on the topic):
Perfected in a concentration camp, as a gift to Hitler!

Probably the weirdest story of invention ever told:

Working on this device saved the life of its inventor, and could've put "the ultimate computing weapon" into the hands of every Nazi army engineer... pretty much the stuff of nightmares.

"Herzstark was a prisoner at Buchenwald but the camp leaders were aware of his work and encouraged it. They apparently wanted to give the invention to the Fuehrer as a victory gift at the end of the war! Herzstark was given a drawing board and worked on the design day and night. The camp was liberated in April, 1945 by the Americans. Herzstark survived as did his revolutionary concept for a miniature calculator." (source: Bruce Flamm)


Disassembly of a mechanical marvel: It has 605 individual parts!

It must be very therapeutic and calming experience (you know how in the army they make soldiers to take apart and clean their guns, a repetitive ritual that calms down and reduces the chances of a shooting spree - I am being sarcastic here) Well, the antique calculator collectors are a cool bunch and not easily given to any angst - but they too, gladly, would spend hours taking apart this little calculating device. The best page showing the disassembly and wonderful innards of this device are located here. Here are only a few steps, highlighting the joy of this process:

Killer Rig

SYSTEM SPECS
CASE- KANDALF LCS
MOTHERBOARD- ASUS MAXIMUS EXTREME X38 CHIPSET THE LATEST DDR3 WITH NB ON WATER CPU & VIDEO CARDS
CPU- INTEL QX9650 THE LATEST

12MB L2 Cache 3 GHz Clock Speed 1333 MHz Front Side Bus
CPU COOLER- THERMALTAKE WATER BLOCK
MEMORY- 4X1 CELL SHOCK DDR3 1800MHZ!!
HARD DRIVES 2X WD 150 RAPTORS IN RAID 0
DVD-RW- PHILIPS 20X DVD-RWS FAST!!!!
OPERATING SYSTEMS- VISTA ULTIMATE 64 BIT
CASE MODS- ADDITIONAL FANS FRONT & SIDE
POWER SUPPLY- 1000 WATT ULTRA X3 TONS OF POWER!!
VIDEO CARD- 2X 2900XT 1GIG MEMORY DDR4 DIAMOND VIPERS !!! on WATER
ADDITIONAL RADIATOR- REAR MOUNTED BLACK ICE RADIATOR W 2x120 FANS for extra cooling!!
OS= VISTA 64 ULTIMATE INSTALLED & UPDATED &TWEAKED ORXP PRO

benchmarks

notice the coolers?

it uses QX9650 click for link....

A must have rig for a computer geek..

BARCODES OF CHINA PRODUCT

I received an email detailing how to determine a product was made from china. At first it was convincing but later i read also that it was not reliable after all. It was advisable not to rely on barcode alone..Product made of china repack somewhere will have different barcode. Barcode will be that of the country it was registered or repack..Please read below for better understanding.

Excerpts from Email..
"Dear friends,

The whole world is now wary of imported products, esp from China, in light of the melamine-tainted milk powders. To differentiate which product is made in Taiwan or China, look at the first 3 digits of the product's barcode--- the numbers 690 / 691 / 692 are MADE IN CHINA. 471 is Made in Taiwan .

It is our human right to know this information. Since the government and related departments are not educating the public, therefore we have to watch out for ourselves.

Nowadays, businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products "made in china", so they don't show from which country it is made. By looking at the barcode, you will know from the first 3 digits if 690-692-- then it is made in China, or
00 ~ 09 USA & CANADA
30 ~ 37 FRANCE
40 ~ 44 GERMANY
49 - JAPAN
50 - UK

Email source: Jinkie of qcstyro.com

But read this one disclaiming this and decide for yourself what to believe.

"

Barcodes not guide to product origin

SENIOR technician Chan Chee Kong, 54, found himself scrutinising food-product barcodes after reading an e-mail he recently received. The e-mail claimed that consumers would be able to differentiate between Taiwan- and China-produced food by decoding the first three digits of the 13-digit European Article Number (EAN) barcode usually found on packaging. The EAN-13 barcode is defined by global-standards organisation GS1, which administers barcodes for retail goods in about 140 member countries. EAN is a superset of the Universal Product Code - the world's first barcode symbology. The latter was formally established in 1973. Singapore got its assigned GS1 prefix back in 1986 or 1987, according to a local GS1 spokesman. China's assigned GS1 prefixes are 690, 691 and 692, while Taiwan's is 471. The e-mail went on to exhort its recipients to avoid food products with China- assigned barcodes, referring to the recent scandal surrounding tainted China-made food products. Mr Chan found out that, contrary to what the e-mail said, his Chinese cooking wines bore the Singapore-assigned prefix 888, despite being labelled as a product of China. He told my paper that he also discovered Malaysian products that appeared to have been re-packaged in Singapore had the '888' barcode on their labels. So, while it is true that each country does have a unique three-digit prefix, it does not reflect the origin of its contents. This is stated in bold on the GS1 website: "GS1 prefixes do not provide identification of country of origin for a given product." It added that the prefixes indicate only the locations from which companies apply for the barcode. In other words, a company that registers its barcode in Singapore will carry the '888' prefix on its products, even if they were manufactured elsewhere. A spokesman for the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority said that the agency does not have any regulation pertaining to barcodes on food packaging. However, Singapore's food regulations do require that basic information - such as a list of ingredients, the name and address of the manufacturer or importer, and the country of origin - be declared on food labels in English.

Source: achchan@sph.com.sg-asiaonedigital