
Curta mechanical calculator - JetSpiegel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
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drewg123
That brings back fond memories.

My Mom & Dad met doing TSD rallies in the 60s. They both worked for the same
company. She had a Morgan, he had Curta. They have both passed away, but I
still have a number of their rally trophies, as well as my Dad's Curta on a
shelf in my home office. I would love to be able to say that I have my Mom's
Morgan, but they sold it when I was born to get a more practical car.

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tzs
I can't find anything on the net about Morgan calculators. Were they rare?

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mzs
A Morgan is a kind of vehicle, likely that one was a small roadster.

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Zikes
Here's an interesting video of one in action:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0cGjC62XRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0cGjC62XRQ)

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tzs
I wish someone would bring these back into production. All the patents should
be long expired. They are going for close to $1000 on eBay, which is too much
for me.

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daeken
I have no idea whether or not anything will ever happen with it, but I got a
Curta teardown poster (shows all of the parts to scale) recently, with the aim
of modeling each component. I'd really like to get everything machined, so I
can have my very own.

I don't know if it'll ever get to that point, but it's one of my goals.

Edit: I should note, though, that it's unlikely to cost less than $1k per
unit. This is more a labor of love and to get more of them out there, than an
attempt to make them economical.

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hcarvalhoalves
Incredible design, things nowadays don't have this level of polish. I guess
it's different when you're literally working for your life!

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51Cards
I have 2 of these and still pull them out to play with all the time. There us
just something so tactile about the feel in your hand, especially while
turning over a calculation. I collect "old mechanical technology" but these
are one of the prides of my collection. There are only only a couple people in
North America that can still service one.

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vinchuco
For a video explaining how it works:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loI1Kwed8Pk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loI1Kwed8Pk)

Interestingly, it is based on an invention of Leibnitz (1600's).

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JetSpiegel
Thanks very much, that was quite elucidative. I can see why people had
difficulty putting it back together.

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JetSpiegel
Still no mention of Pattern Recognition, poor William Gibson.

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happyscrappy
Here is a Curta simulator:

[http://www.curta.de/kr34/curta_simulator_en.htm](http://www.curta.de/kr34/curta_simulator_en.htm)

