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My dream is to one day own a Curta. I want to find an algorithm to approximate pi, one crank at a time. I had a chance to hold one at a vintage computer festiva
by lapetitejort 4mo ago
My dream is to one day own a Curta. I want to find an algorithm to approximate pi, one crank at a time. I had a chance to hold one at a vintage computer festival once. Smaller than I expected. Truly pocketable.
I just had a thought. Why hasn't a Curta simulator come out for the Playdate? I guess I am cursed with creating it
- tavavex 4mo agoThe Curta is the ultimate calculator to own. I wish someone was still making modern replicas, but it seems that it's just too complex or at least too complex to bother with. So we're stuck with scavenging the ones that are still working off of individuals. I hope to buy one someday if there's still any supply of them left on the used market.
- Miraste 4mo agoThere is a wonderful teardown of it here: https://www.vcalc.net/CU-Disassembly/ https://www.vcalc.net/CU-Disassembly/ Scrolling through that makes me think it's extremely unlikely to be replicated commercially. I can't imagine how much machining all of those parts would cost.
- bell-cot 4mo agoFor those unfamiliar with the Curta - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
- pugworthy 4mo agoI found a Thacher Cylindrical Slide Rule [1] in the garbage once at the university I worked at. I didn't have a holy grail list for such things, but it assumed that role when I found it. [1] https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1131290 https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_11312...
- Hackbraten 4mo agoI'll buy it if you ever follow through!