Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2015/10/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Larry, You really know how to bring back the memories. My first encounter with a calculating machine was as an undergraduate in the late 1940s, and I suspect it was a Freiden, but can't recall for sure. What I do recall is that one had to flip the carriage from column to column by hand. By 1953, when I was working in my first real engineering job, I had my choice of either an automatic Freiden or a Marchant. I chose the Marchant, and used it to calculate supersonic nozzle contours and solve stress equations. The real marvel of the day was the Square Root Freiden. My wife used a Freiden that was connected to print its output on an IBM Selectric, but it was a maintenance nightmare, and seldom worked correctly. Our wind tunnel data reduction was done by an ERA 1102, and printed on Flexowriters. When I finally got to use the pocket calculators by TI and HP, I was truly amazed at what such little gadgets could do. Jim Nichols Tullahoma, TN USA On 10/20/2015 9:25 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG wrote: > Herbert Kramer?s photos of the Babbage Difference Engine are revealing. > To modern computer nerds it is the Holy Grail of technology, often > discussed but never seen. As a young college student I used to walk by a > building on campus that emitted sounds like a threshing machine. One day I > wandered in and found that it was the home of the Aiken Mark 1 computer, a > 30 foot long electro mechanical device that was like a Frieden Calculating > machine on steroids. The noise was the sound of thousands of relays > opening and closing. It took 3 seconds to add a pair of numbers, about 16 > seconds to divide them. Dr. Aiken started work on it before WW2 to crank > out data for the military. I was shown around the lab by An Wang, a > graduate student, who later invented the core memory and founded Wang > computing.The Babbge Enngine looks like the guts of an old Freiden > Calculator instead of a combination of a Hammond organ and a telephone > switchboard. Neither looks like my iPhone at all. > Larry Z > > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information >