Originally published at: I can't stop watching this mechanical keyboard attempt to divide by zero - Boing Boing
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From Gail Sherman!
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In case you’re wondering why there are two divide buttons that need to be pressed at the same time, Friden was getting around a patent for a one-button divide function.
Here’s a nice page about these machines, with a sensible divide video at the end.
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It’s not just ‘divide by zero’ that produces interesting behavior in mechanical calculators. My father told me that in the days before electronic calculators, they would spend free time trying to see who could make the most interesting rhythms on them.
I also heard about how they would perform iterative calculations on them. They would have a row of calculators, each with a person (let’s be honest here: it was ALWAYS a woman). Each woman would do her part of the calculation, then pass the value to the next woman. When they reached the end of the row, they’d walk the result back to the beginning of the row for the next iteration.
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