Calculating Tim

Welcome to the Corona Virus Chronicles... Tim is now self-isolating, and presenting his videos directly from his apartment, via a web link. Calculators come in many shapes and sizes, and some are really quite amazing. It will come as no surprise tat Tim has some intriguing examples in his collection! First we see 'Martin the Martian' - a mechanical device for doing multiplication. There is a version of this toy that came out over 100 years ago - see https://www.grand-illusions.com/educated-monkey-c2x21140029 - but this is a more modern version, made of plastic. Across the bottom are the numbers 1 to 12. Move the Martian's feet until they are pointing at two numbers that you want to multiply - the answer will appear in the little box that the Martian is holding. The next example looks like a 100,000 Lire bank note from Italy. It comes folded in half, like a little book, and at the back are pages for making notes. But inside the front page is a solar powered calculator. It has virtually no thickness, and is incredibly light. So very easy to carry around in your pocket. Then Tim demonstrates a much heavier example, presumably designed to grace someone's desk. The thing he really likes about this one is that when you press a button, the lid lifts up very slowly and elegantly, to reveal the keyboard. It also functions as a calendar. The fourth example is something of a novelty. It looks like traditional 35mm film canister. The end of the film is poking out, ready to be loaded into your camera. But looks are deceptive. Pull the end of the film slightly further out of the canister, and you can see that it is a calculator, with everything happening within the thickness of the film. Rather then Kodachrome, the name of the canister is Calcuchrome! Finally, made by the company Bandai back in the 1980s, an amazing combination device, that is both a calculator and a sliding blocks puzzle. The really ingenious thing about this device, especially when you think how old it is, is that a particular key, say the numeral 6, will always function as a 6, wherever it is moved to. Each key, including the + - x and ÷, has a unique pattern of raised dots on the back, so no matter when it is placed, the calculator recognises that particular number or function by the pattern of dots, not by the position it is in. Really clever!