Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2015/10/20

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Subject: [Leica] Re; Babbage Engine
From: lrzeitlin at aol.com (lrzeitlin at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2015 13:08:26 -0400

 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



Replies: Reply from kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner) ([Leica] Re; Babbage Engine)