[Leica] Re; Babbage Engine

[kanner at acm.org (Herbert Kanner)]

You bring back memories. I must have spent at least a hundred hours poking a 
Marchant machine both during WWII in the Manhattan District,  for my thesis, 
for a joint attempt by three of us grad students to win a puzzle contest, 
and designing a cylindrical lens on an early job. A bit of time also on a 
Friden. I?ll tell a great Friden story in another email, probably on the 
Forum.

Never ever had a problem with a Marchant needing maintenance. Also am a 
proud owner of a Curta, also purchased for car rallies.

Herbert Kanner
kanner at acm.org

Question Authority and the authorities will question you.

> On Oct 20, 2015, at 10:08 AM, Larry Zeitlin via LUG <lug at 
> leica-users.org> wrote:
> 
> 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
> 
> 
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