[Leica] Re; Babbage Engine

[Herbert Kanner]

You bring back memories. I must have spent at least a hundred hours poking a Marchant machine both during WWII in the Manhattan District,  for my thesis, for a joint attempt by three of us grad students to win a puzzle contest, and designing a cylindrical lens on an early job. A bit of time also on a Friden. I’ll tell a great Friden story in another email, probably on the Forum.

Never ever had a problem with a Marchant needing maintenance. Also am a proud owner of a Curta, also purchased for car rallies.

Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org

Question Authority and the authorities will question you.

> On Oct 20, 2015, at 10:08 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> wrote:
> 
> Jim,
> 	Thanks for your comments on mechanical calculating machines. Those were the good old days that in retrospect were not that good. At various times I owned both Monroe and Marchant mechanical calculators that were reasonably reliable and needed repair only every few months. I did the calculations for a Ph.D thesis on a Facit handcranked machine that, as you said, had to have the carriage shifted manually. In the early 50’s, on a European trip,  I bought a Curta hand held machine, a complex thing of real beauty, that I used on auto rallies. It still functions flawlessly 65 years later. At the same time I picked up a Leica M3 with an f2 Summicron for a bit over $150 at a duty free shop. That still works too.
> 	But then I had an epiphany, I attended an IBM computer demonstration. The customer rep solicited problems to solve and I gave him the problem set that took three months to complete on the Facet. The IBM 1620 machine did it in 30 seconds. I was hooked.
> 	Now I even use simpler cameras. Olympus 4/3 models with my old Leica lenses. My kids will probably junk all the old mechanical hardware.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Larry Z
> 
> 
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