The Astounding Curta Mechanical Calculator

[jumonji123]

...I am going to get one of these. Eventually. I SWEAR IT.

[FromanMD]

@polloypico1 What kind of shape is it in? Has it been serviced recently?

[polloypico1]

@FromanMD is in super mint condition, no scraches, no damage, i have two sets of manuals,and the case

[polloypico1]

is the tipe 2 shape black and gray

[peterasimpson]

Brilliant, I've just seen one of these on TV.

[Androbb]

Made in Liechtenstein not Germany ;)....Fantastic ;)

[cbjeebs]

does anyone find this as hysterical as me?

[mr1234sharingan]

im too lazy to use this kind of calculator, i still prefer the ordinary ones aside from that people may think im carrying a grenade with me

[tonysuffolk]

Excellent demonstration! Thank you.

[cambraca1]

4:25 I "might be able to see it" if you upload a high quality video!.. great gadget :)

[fracture82]

3:50-4:00

YOU READ MY MIND

[wdr217]

I want one now. lol just to say i got one.

[scar504]

Wow! I have been using mine incorrectly for years. Who knew these things season food and solve mathematical calculations.

[mrfreedoms]

wow great calculator and video, thanks...

[aby0ni]

how come someone understanding how this thing works need a calculator anyway

[Polaf3456]

This shits actually pretty fucking genious...

[ohnobeezey]

This is beautiful! 

[etango]

So incredible-- I can't imagine making one myself under the best conditions, much less inventing one in the worst conditions imaginable.

[RedXSkii]

666 isnt a lucky number >.>

[chaotickinetics]

Sheer beauty. I love it.

[halldor7913]

fucking 800 dollars it i fucking insane i cant beleve that peaple actually sell this at that prise

[Sylynt421]

ROFLMAO! Gotta love TSA ;) Pretty groovy though!

[calebmosher]

AAAHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

[aksel3007]

Thats pretty cool ......... but will it blend?

[Flatine1]

how much it cost? don't feel like searching myself

[yamsbananas141]

@Flatine1 around 500 O_O

[weedmountain]

Haha, exactly. The questions is… Will it blend.

And honestly, I would defenetly get one if it wasen't that pricey. Just to put it on the drawer at home. =(

[YouMindthegap]

who else went straight to ebay ONLY to find that its bloody pricey??

[charliejazz]

Put some dinosaur's DNA in it and go get the freakin' last boat!

[rebell813]

insanely ingenious 

[mliniman]

AAHAAAAA

[scootcha]

Clearly black magic.

[bcgrote]

Where is the tiny magician?

[oOOpIIIqOOo]

But… will it blend?

[lukkl]

who else went straight to ebay looking to buy one?

[mokopa]

the perfect gift for the man who thinks he has everything :)

[justinlegend8800]

I went to buy one, then realized they sell between 1.5k to 3k!

[Silversage840]

This actually impresses me more than an electronic calculator

[MrSpaghetti12]

or you could just get a fucking calculator and save 5 minutes

[lexmarklogi]

@MrSpaghetti12 yeah dumbass, that would have been so easy to do in the 40's

[MrSpaghetti12]

@lexmarklogi shut the fuck up kid

[lexmarklogi]

@MrSpaghetti12 great comeback sir

[zwiftblade]

@MrSpaghetti12 who the fuck would want a calculator when you can have a math grenade?

[idlewild]

You didn't spin it three times.

[stryfe81]

@idlewild yeah he did. The first turn effectively multiplied by 1, even though he said it was zero.

[frankly1970]

Thanks, but I'll use my iPod instead. Not as useful, maybe, but I can also play Angry Birds with it and find out what the weather is.



[josefopeda]

@frankly1970 Cool story bro

[halolamer]

so.. this isnt a weed grinder?

[xjayrdude]

I WANT IT NAO!!!!!

[VoidOnTuesday]

And while this was being developed the Americans were inventing an atomic bomb with their slide rules.

[seige184]

You know they invented the electronic calculator that runs on solar right?

[robertandmoritz]

shut up and TAKE MY MONEY!

[benoliver999]

First thought: Alan Partridge.

[dtj41]

Yea, but can it graph a sin function?

[nothke]

Did anyone else come here because of "Pattern Recognition"?

[aeonblack6]

@nothke I scrolled through the comments looking for this

[gunnerdelta]

clickity clack

[vapourmile]

Brilliant demonstration of a wonderful device. Thank you so much for making the video, you've made this geeks day! : )

[moriljules]

can it divide

[UdaiTongpuTaxim]

has anyone ever tried to take one of these on a plane? can you imagine all the questioning?

"I don't know what it is, but this man says it's a calculator. I just know it makes a lot of clicking and there's a bunch of numbers."

"Yeah, let's go ahead and evacuate this part of the airport. Ground all flights and get the bomb squad and FBI in here."

"But I just use it to do my taxes."

"That's what they all say, sir."

[fuunguus]

@UdaiTongpuTaxim Meanwhile in Thailand, I walk through the security check and it beeps, but no one cares to search me, haha!

[PatrickLohKamp]

@UdaiTongpuTaxim

actually there were used by pilots quite frequently for a long time.

[FromanMD]

@UdaiTongpuTaxim It would take you hours to explain this device to those people and you'd miss your flight.

[aznladuk007]

it quicker to do this on paper!

[mattdizam352]

i have one for sale...contact me

[luvBasic]

When my grandfather died, I somehow got 3 slide rules he had used over the years when he was a chemical engineer. I thought they were the coolest things ever. Somehow they don't seem quite as cool anymore...

[666deathangle]

666 is a lucky number??

[fritzlimo]

I have one:P

I sell it:D

[Tricyklist]

Even positive racism is still racism. The fact that the inventor was a Jew is completely irrelevant. His race was an accident of birth over which he had absolutely no control. Had the Nazis not concentrated (pun alert) their hatred on the Jews they could easily be ruling the world today. Perhaps we should thank the remaining Jews for saving us from this awful fate? Except that they practice their own aggressive racism towards the Arabs. Another lesson still yet to be learned by humanity.

[natedejuggla]

@Tricyklist "an accident of birth?" i can't tell if this statement is pro racism or against racism...

[Tricyklist]

@natedejuggla Let me put it another way: We have zero control over our nationality or race. If it is not a choice we ourselves can possibly make. So how can we attack anybody on the grounds of their place of birth? Why should we be nationalistic or racist due to of our place of birth? The idea is ludicrous! We are all human beings. How we behave as we grow into adulthood is largely due to ingrained conditioning by our parents, culture and environment but racism is still a personal choice.

[ZeRo10901913]

wicked!!!

[shadowkillsalleasily]

"666 lucky number"

[42f87d89]

you soulless fool! what would happen if you would break it??

[DARKSCOPE001]

holy crap thats amazing i dont even want to know the ammount of machenery that went into that thing. let alone the fact that it was made in a concentration camp. Good lorn it makes my head spin

[ogatobranco]

It looks like a grenade >_>...

[Raxyzz]

@ogatobranco Don't confuse them though. You don't wanna throw an calculator like that XD

[Blacklemon67]

does anyone know what that metal is? coated aluminum?

[mpereztwomx]

the word "thrice" does exist

[benjorgensen1]

thats so amazing! i have been wondering if anyone ever made a mechanical calculator, its odd really that i would wonder that, and not even think it was actualy posable. maybe if i were him i would have done the same thing, in a parallel universe.

[SolarCel]

@benjorgensen1 if you read about the history of computing, you'll discover that the ancestors of your current computer include the 'difference engine', a large mechanical calculator. I thought this was common knowledge but i guess not!

[videowilliams]

My engineer granddad left me one of those! I found it fascinating, but could never figure it out. Thanks for the lesson!

[assassinXXnissassa]

i may have done better in math when i was in highschool if we were allowed to use these

[TheNinjaDefuze]

Math Grenade!!!

[seeyouatfourtwenty]

Awesome video. I have one of these, left to me by my dad who used it in his job as a hydro-metric surveyor from the 50's to the 80's. When I was a little kid I used to watch him use it...he used it until he retired in 1986. After nearly 40 years of experience, he could out-calculate most people and their electronic calculators!

[AryanKnight]

-thankYou for the xlnt.demonstration, which reveals that a good Slide'rule is superior both conceptually and functionally; --nevertheless this Antikythera type cylindrically-geared Astronomical-calculator was quite remarkable for having been invented by the Aryans of Greece some 80-yrs BC!!! More recently, the patent-offices of Germany and USA in the 1920's & 30's were replete with similar such cylindrical/geared-calculators­! Still, it's hard to beat pen-&-paper if one knows what they're doing!

[Shamwell15]

9 nazis' dislike this video.

[clvnnggmail]

@DrQxx seriously bro? whats wrong with you..... get outside please

[DrQxx]

@clvnnggmail I am only joking You must be one of those super religious types sorry to offend sir/ma'am :)

[MrRedClues]

i want one but their like 1000+ now =/

[bob26drft]

My god. I want to eat it, is that so bad?

[solidpoint]

Clever, but can't see how it has anything on a good sliderule. It also doesn't seem to be able to do transcendentals, so couldn't be used for artillery calculations. The real genius of this time was Alan Turing.

[christophe16700]

@solidpoint

Hi,

Precision is not the same : try 1.0001 x 0.9999 with a slide rule !

But I agree with you, the calculations you can do with a Curta are basic.

+ - x : and their combinations are all you can do, exactly the same than with a pen and a piece of paper.

And if you have a Curta, I'm ready to swap it for a dozen of slide rules ;-)

[antiblog]

it was invented by a jew... educated in northern europe. the same happend with einstein and others.

so I think that being jewish has little to do here, this is the result of good education mainly, and the individual capacity of this particular person.

saying "Jews are so freakin' smart" or things like that is like saying "arian people is superior".smartness and genious is not associated with ethnics or religion.

perhapps the society and culture created by groups of individuals has more to do.

[ilocarapid]

@antiblog

It doesn't take a "genious" to notice the test score differences between ethnic groups in the same schools. Groups were shaped and selected by their environment, THAT is why they're different from each other. Even "social and cultural factors" are genetically reinforced by sexual selection. It's stupid to say that one group "superior" in everything, but to deny average group differences is naive and willfully ignorant (but more "politically correct," of course).

[antiblog]

@ilocarapid etchnics have nothing to do

"in the same school" doesn't mean everything, you have to take the full context. family, environment, and a long etc.

and besides all that, there is a much to do with the individual itselve.

I have known jewish people that are pretty stupid and narrow minded, and aborigin descendant that are way more smarter than them.

israel must have to be a nation of super-geniuses. and no, there is a mix, like everywhere else.

so I think you're pretty ignorant.

[Kolosos007]

666 - lucky number indeed :D

[strongnoob]

primitive reverse engineered computer technology.

[lunekranoplan]

He made one of these malnourished and under armed surveillance. He was the Jewish Tony Stark.

[janporra]

men, looks like an abacus, but it has so many pieces involved, must be expensive

[shawbros]

If I put that on my fishing pole, I could be a fishing god.

[OddFacade]

That's incredibly clever and brilliant by all means. It's not very efficient today, what with digital calculators that are practically given away at school fundraisers, business promotions, and so on, but it's certainly a wonder of a novelty item!

[p13m4n]

The design looks so amazingly modern for something so old, doesn't it? Someone should really start making replicas.

[metaleater9]

666 IS YOUR LUCKY NUMBER?!?!?!?!

[ElliotovHull]

@metaleater9 Why not ?

[BenHPilot]

AsianDragon69 - yes, it can do division as easily as multiplication, addition and subtraction. Sqaures or higher powers are also very easy. Square roots more difficult. My father was a whizz at these machines. I have two, but am not up to his standard.

[Mincho1994]

Can't i just use my phone o_o'

[chinchonchinchon]

The insult to the fuehrere would've been that the inventor was a joo.

Nazis are stupid.

[LEDRavecom]

I think this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen! Thanks for the great video!

How old is the Curta you have here?

[AsianDragon69]

ok so it can do subtraction, addition and multiplication but what about DIVISION????

[Noharian]

clickadie clack xD

[RandomDirectors]

omg

[goldbullions]

What you got for US$1,000/- ? A good working condtion was sold for US$100,000/- a few years ago. A mint one was auctioned for

US$250,000/-

[IlluminatiEliteTV]

"Now, I probably shouldn't do this..." Yeah no, you *definitely* shouldn't do that. Yikes. Great video, though!

[youtubalisation]

well clever work by jews again

[gonepishing]

very impressive!

[bigbzon]

Are you guys serious when you say that it costs more than $1000 ???

I just bought one at a flea market for 13 Cents!!!

Literally two hours ago.

And its in perfect condition!!!

[McDux0r]

If you did then you're damned lucky! Have a quick look on ebay, the starting price is around $1,000+

Excellent video btw, demonstrates its use quickly but simply.

[bigbzon]

I've just sold it for $750.

It was a collector so i know it will get a good home. This kind of thing needs to be preserved for the future.

[JanPB]

@bigbzon You should have sold it for about twice as much (if it was in a good condition, esp. if it was Curta II - the one shown on video is the Curta I with fewer digits).

[bigbzon]

@ JanPB

It was a Type 1, serialnumber 64993.

It was probably worth more but the guy who bought(Morten from Denmark) it was a collector and he will give it a good home. And i only paid 13 cents for it. So, at the end of the day i'm happy.

[bigbzon]

But, i must say that i miss it.

It is such a outstanding piece of workmanship.

[bigbzon]

It was in a very good condition.

The only "wear" was on the botton. Besides that almost like new.

[swsmith1000]

Thanks for the video. Very helpful. I have a Curta I that my dad probably got in Germany. Over the last nine years we first figured out what it was - now we're figuring out how to use it. Amazing!

[SqOcelot]

That's awesome. Mechanical computation devices are far more interesting than electronic one.

But I have one thing that I may have done differently if I had invented it: for the numbers around the ring (where 1=1 turn, 2=10 turns, etc.) I feel like it would make more sense for it to start with 0=1 turn, because then the number would represent the power of ten that you're using. But I suppose it also makes sense for 1 to equal 1 though. Still a fantastic device.

[ImHomeAtLast]

@SqOcelot it's called painting over the existing numbers and etching in th new ones

[akumacornflakes]

I'd love to have one of these, but they're totally out of my price range. $1,000 for a calculator is pretty steep.

[misterfricki]

666 lucky number rofl xD

[DrBPhD]

Marvelous.

[braniacscience]

That is a beautiful piece of design. I was lucky enough to use one that a friend of mine owns. Absolutely fantastic. Does what a calculator should and has such character. Now I really want one, but I don't have enough money!

[thaibu]

fair value today is about $1300. One prototype supposed to be for Hitler, but he killed himself.

[DrBPhD]

Any relation between that and this peculiar device?

[ScottSkydive]

where can I get one

[1mpur1ty]

ebay...they start at $400ish

[faovehyfrm]

thank you for this super interesting video!

[smegweevil]

Howling. The inventor was damn smart. To conceive of this device and then to make it. Just great!

[quidproquo2004]

Does anyone know how much it would cost me today?

[rj12124]

several thousands of dollars. They haven't made one since the 70's. I want one, too!

[quidproquo2004]

thanks for the response rj. Hey, you should check out "Pattern Recognition" by William Gibson: there are curtas is this interesting story.

[solakasoup]

I have a Type II given to me by my grandfather. I always asked him to show it to me when I visited as a kid and it was always fascinating. Apparently they are really hard to find, only 140,000 Curtas were produced 60,000 of those being Type II

[BrightSuzaku]

MATH GRENADE!!!! ^__^

I just learned about these things today. Friggin' awesome!

[tylers911]

ha totaly

[FreepShop]

Jews are so freakin' smart, that one of them actually invented this is a concentration camp under the Nazis. Incredible that he managed to develop it under those horrific conditions. Genius will not be subdued.

[drh4683]

Actually he designed it before he was sent to the camp. He recreated the drawings from memory while in the camp, still amazing. He received preferential treatment though as he was only 1/2 jewish. He had an aryan mother, so the nazi's gave an exception by letting him pursue this.

[cgbagne]

he had the concept in his head beforehand. however, he was given permission to develop it while in the camp. also, his mother was a catholic.

[Thetruthishere11]

@FreepShop

This was not an invention of his. It was already invented. Give credit to the real inventor.

[tsk5565]

@Thetruthishere11 Really? Easy to say - you have anything to back that statement up, or are you just annoyed that a jew invented it, so you are trying to imply some member of the master race was the true inventor?

[Thetruthishere11]

@tsk5565

Are you really trying to convince people jews invented mechanical calculators?

these are things that have been around a while.

no offense.

[lodevijk]

@FreepShop Not all Jews made this kind of inventions you know.

[240SSONLY]

@FreepShop look deeply into the story, and under what conditions it was made... im not sayn jews arent smart... but if i a gun is up against your head... im sure you would make any thing...

and its not like he made it out thin air in his bunk bed... the inventor was captured like many engineers to wrk... and then be killed in laboratories...

[popper666]

@FreepShop "Jews are so freakin' smart,", although obviously meant as a compliment, is actually a racist statement.

[aasimazam]

@FreepShop if he was so smart he would have found a way out of there! Yes I am anti Semitic and i hate Jews and something else about Nazis and Holocaust and eh something yada yada!

[lumaxor]

@FreepShop

The mechanical calculator was invented in 1642[1] and the first commercially successful device was manufactured from 1851

source: wikipedia

h**p://lecture.eingang.org/pas­caline.html

[timthecoleman]

@FreepShop Well they did let him make it. Not like he made it out of sticks.

[Incrue]

@FreepShop yeah they are... but why?

[marcusjhung]

I should totally whip that thing out in the middle of my calculus class XD Everyone's gonna be like "what the hell is that thing?!"

[ashk1a]

genius

[ironclownfish]

Where can I get one?

[divebeforeyoulook]

Prety amazing. good luck finding replacement parts if you break it.

[suskistube]

It's like an I-Pod, but 100 times better. It even sounds 100 times better.

[JoPiDo]

thank you for this video, I like it!

I WANT THAT CALCULATOR!

[AGPPyroman]

WANT!

[talada2]

Oh my god, you opened it? Why, WHY would you open a mint condition Curta? You fool! It's worthless, you broke the seal! *evil look*

[bitchslapper12]

I really find this as an amazing piece of equipment! But I wonder how those sliders work? It says 2,2,2 over the first three ones? And how do you know which number you're at by pulling the sliders?

[sclogse1]

thanks for showing this. You got my number. And now, back to watching tom waits...kentucky ave

[Luukasa]

can you divide with it?

[EbaySellerUsa]

It looks like the scroll from the Da Vinci Code.

[PolandKaniol]

Amazing... It's show a power of human mind :)

[HotActionProductions]

this is from the time when Kalkalators used to be humans, 200 AD.

tpitpically, this kind of Caltorator handle scientipical equations.

do you know anything about diesels.

[ntesla66]

Ahh.. What the mind of man can Imagine!

[blqkvo]

U think that those things are simpler than modern calculators? Imagine how the averege people from the 1920-1940 felt when they saw this thing :D This was like the TERMINATOR or Iphone :D