Anyone used a Curta?

Jeff Wisnia wrote: (clip)When they got to the next to last checkpoint, which was just prior to that instruction, they were handed a note reading, "Disregard Instruction No.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Hi, Jeff, One of the funniest experiences I can remember from rallying was an instruction which read, "At such and such an intersection turn right, and change speed to the sum of the mileages on the sign at the corner, divided by one third." As I recall, the sum of the mileages was about 21, and when we turned the corner we could see a whole lot of cars, closely spaced, going

7 MPH. We realized that dividing by 1/3 was the same as multiplying by 3, so we adopted a speed of 63 MPH, and zoomed past all those cars. And then, it must have dawned on them, because it wasn't long before we saw them in our rear view mirror, like a swarm of bees overtaking us.

I also recall, once, a rallyist who was very late came blasting into a checkpoint, followed by the highway patrol, who was also given an in-time.

That reasoning doesn't hold up in general; instead it depends on the actual ages and quantities of people entering/leaving. As an example, suppose at time t0 we have 12 guys of ages

46,49,52,55,58,59,60,61,62,63,64,65 (average = 57.83). If the oldest retires at time t1 a year later, the new average is 58.18, up slightly. But if the two oldest retire, the new average is 57.50, down slightly. If the two oldest retire and a new guy of age 44 starts at t1, avg=56.27, down a bit more.

-jiw

(46+49+52+55+58+59+60+61+62+63+64+65)/12 = 57.83 (47+50+53+56+59+60+61+62+63+64+65)/11 = 58.18 (47+50+53+56+59+60+61+62+63+64)/10 = 57.50 (44+47+50+53+56+59+60+61+62+63+64)/11 = 56.27

A firm I worked for in the 60's had a Munroe calculator - trouble was it was so slow that pencil and paper was quicker and the slide rule was lightening fast in compsrison.

I often wish that I had offered to buy the Curta owned by the chap at the next desk - he probably would have given it to me. I have a Munroe "educator" downstairs which I bought used for $5.00 around 1971. This is the little four function, hand cranked unit made for high school "commercial" classes. My uncle worked through university in the 1930's on a hand cranked Walther, a beautiful machine. A story told by a "facit" service rep. around 1963 has the salesperson demonstrating the latest machine with the claim that it was so durable that you could drop it out the window with no harm. The client picked up the demo unit and dropped it out the twelfth story window. The salesman stopped making this claim. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

Back in the 70's when I worked in a Physics lab, we had a Monroe, what a monster. In those days, a PDP8 minicomputer with 8K of RAM (core actually) was considered Big Stuff. Slide rules were just beginning to disappear.

I have a fondness for technology around the cusp of the digital takeover and I'd love to get a Curta if one showed up at a reasonable cost. I do, however, have the fist 2 electronic programmble calculators HP made, the all discrete model with the CRT display and core memory and the first IC model with semiconductor memory and LED display. Way cool and they both still work. I've seen the core model go for over $1000 on ebay (I suppose that's good news for my estate, since nobody's going to pry it out of my fingers before then :-)

I remember buying a knockoff of one of the HP handhelds and returning it because some of the functions returned wrong answers. I turned it it and got the HP (a 25, I think. I remember playing lunar lander on it). I think I still have that someplace.

Paul

Dad had or has - gosh have to remember to ask when I see him ! - a Curta mechanical calculator - he had a tubular slide rule also.

He was a pilot and later a navigator (broken leg pilot) over Germany so many years ago.

Have to see what toys he has in his dusty boxes. He retired as a (working) Design Director of Western Electric.

Martin

I had one of those "tubular" slide rules also. I believe it was called a Geniac. Wish I could find it now to show a friend. I think it had a 66 inch scale. only c , d and log scales though. It did help when extra digit accuracy was needed. ...lew...

Back when I was taking Physics 1A, we had an experiment on hysteresis, in which we had to add a lot of increments to a running total. I went out and rented one of those Monroe calculators, and while it did do the job, one of my classmates did just as well with his ABACUS!