Divide by Zero on the Friden STW10 Mechanical Calculator

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  • čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
  • Please, try a divide by zero! Pleeeeeease! What would happen? What if Katherine Johnson did that in the movie Hidden Figures (this is the Friden that sits on her desk)? Would it catch fire? Would the rocket trajectory go to infinity? Now you are finally going to find out. Stick to the end for a little extra, a scene from another great movie that stars the Friden. This is a Friden STW 10 from 1956.
    Friden Calculator Playlist: • Friden STW 10 Mechanic...
    More about the Friden STW10 on my website:
    www.curiousmarc.com/mechanica...
    Calculator plays the Friden March and does 0/0
    • The Friden STW-10 Calc...
    Friden SWT-10 full demo video including square roots:
    • Friden STW 10 Mechanic...
    Restoration of this machine:
    • Restoring a 1956 Fride...
    00:00 Intro
    00:53 Machine setup
    01:37 Division by zero
    02:19 How division works: calculating pi
    03:47 Division slo-mo
    04:33 Redo div by 0 with explanation
    05:27 Scene from the Apartment movie with hundreds of Fridens
    Our sponsor for PCBs: www.pcbway.com
    Support the team on Patreon: / curiousmarc
    Merch on Teespring: teespring.com/stores/curiousm...
    Learn more on companion site: www.curiousmarc.com
  • Věda a technologie

Komentáře • 2,1K

  • @CuriousMarc
    @CuriousMarc  Před 5 lety +4676

    Folks, no need to argue about colorful alternative mathematical theories - the thorny problem of division by zero was solved for good over 100 years ago by the rigorous development of infinitesimal calculus. Which says: division of a positive non-zero constant by something that tends to zero, tends to infinity [added note: dividing "zero by zero", or more exactly, two things that tend towards zero, is more complicated: it can give zero, infinity, or anything in-between, but that's for another time...]. So the calculator sort of gives the right answer, using almost the correct method: trying to fit an infinitesimally small number into a big one, and finding it fits so many times it goes to infinity. I would put it in the category of happy mechanical accidents.

    • @banana1231234
      @banana1231234 Před 5 lety +148

      People who never took a calc course in college sound off

    • @davidgrover5996
      @davidgrover5996 Před 5 lety +54

      CuriousMarc, Isn’t this the kind of thing that summons Great Cuthulu?

    • @CuriousMarc
      @CuriousMarc  Před 5 lety +289

      @@banana1231234 Or whose math knowledge is derived from a Google of Wikipedia... People in the comments are just mixing up stuff hopelessly. Although it is true that for the purpose of pure mathematical logic dividing by zero is not allowed, that's not what matters in practical computer calculus. Dividing by zero can be a programming error, but in most cases it is the result of an underflow in a valid calculation, when the divisor got vanishingly small, and got rounded off to zero. This is why a correctly implemented IEEE compliant computer math library will return Inf (for infinity) if you divide by zero, and not NaN (not a number). However, it will return NaN if you try to divide 0 by 0, because there is no way to know what the result should be (see my top post). Both are the correct and standardized results for modern machine computation. So you could say the Friden calculator does a fair job of being IEEE compliant way ahead of its time...

    • @tkmonson
      @tkmonson Před 5 lety +89

      I wouldn't even call this a mechanical accident. This result is actually logically consistent, and it correctly models the math that computability theory is based on. It's more of a mechanical consistency! That said, for practical purposes, you would want to program a failsafe or an exception in this case because infinite recursion is not useful for anything.

    • @devwarrior2289
      @devwarrior2289 Před 5 lety +1

      @@davidgrover5996 Nah, only the smaller one attends to these matters

  • @chrisquick7160
    @chrisquick7160 Před 6 lety +17468

    Teacher, "You are allowed a basic 4 function calculator for this exam."
    *Walks in with this.

    • @ObsidianParis
      @ObsidianParis Před 6 lety +938

      Half of the other attending students will bless you, the other one curse you :)

    • @vladen14
      @vladen14 Před 5 lety +1766

      ...In the middle of the exam, everything is quite....
      *CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK BLING*
      *CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK BLING*
      *CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK CLONK BLING*

    • @Lavah
      @Lavah Před 5 lety +146

      @@vladen14 hello fellow thinkers who were searching for this comment

    • @furrytimelord
      @furrytimelord Před 5 lety +118

      Everyone would kill you if your brought this into a class

    • @ShadowRaptor42
      @ShadowRaptor42 Před 5 lety +138

      Imagine someone trying to cheat

  • @SolApathy
    @SolApathy Před 6 lety +11387

    The Div /0 command allows you to oil the mechanicals and then you can cancel the command once oiling is complete.

  • @RalphDratman
    @RalphDratman Před 2 lety +1229

    There was another "dangerous" phenomenon on this or a very similar Friden machine:
    The instructions warned against holding down the multiply button.
    At age 12 or so, around 1963, I could not resist the temptation to challenge this rule.
    The machine would make terrible noises and then jam up so badly that the service person had to come fix it!

    • @sophiacristina
      @sophiacristina Před 2 lety +65

      Ohhh, the things we do at 12...

    • @AverageAlien
      @AverageAlien Před 2 lety +41

      @@sophiacristina Getting in shouting matches with strangers on BO2

    • @sophiacristina
      @sophiacristina Před 2 lety +23

      @@AverageAlien Haha, in my case it would be Quake 1... :)

    • @swarajya.55
      @swarajya.55 Před 2 lety +3

      whitest name I've ever heard

    • @Chleosl
      @Chleosl Před rokem +1

      critical error occurred.. XD

  • @thespiciestmeatball
    @thespiciestmeatball Před 2 lety +562

    I had an older professor for linear algebra and he once told our class about what he and his classmates would do when they got bored in their physics labs. He said they had a mechanical calculator around and they’d divide by zero on it and the calculator would start chugging without end. I didn’t get why that would be pleasing to do until today. Truth be told, I’d do the same as well

  • @krisztiannemeth6148
    @krisztiannemeth6148 Před 6 lety +2529

    What really fascinates me is that they implemented this division algorithm *fully mechanically*. It would be just a couple of lines in any programming language, but with springs and rods... Wow. Hats off to the designers!

    • @robertbradley3320
      @robertbradley3320 Před 2 lety +51

      This is only truly possible an a programming language with lazy evaluation.

    • @proosee
      @proosee Před 2 lety +108

      well, yeah, that would be impressive if we could totally forget thousands of people who designed modern computers and all the programming languages...

    • @enderkoregameing8090
      @enderkoregameing8090 Před 2 lety +185

      The actual electronic logic gates behind dividers inside coding languages are probably the exact same if not similar to what this mechanical calculator does

    • @proosee
      @proosee Před 2 lety +62

      @@enderkoregameing8090 yes, they are, only base is 2 instead of 10. I find this machine impressive too, but compared to amount of smartness put in electronics and software it's just piece of cake.

    • @litapd311
      @litapd311 Před 2 lety +13

      hardware and software aren't that different ;)

  • @gabrielathero
    @gabrielathero Před 6 lety +9063

    So the inventors added an extra Anti-Idiot-Button. Clever XD

    • @C2H5OHist
      @C2H5OHist Před 6 lety +349

      The problem is there will always be a better idiot.. Can other infinite loops be found within the calc's capability?

    • @NintendoSunnyDee
      @NintendoSunnyDee Před 6 lety +51

      AlfonsoB probably not with the basic functions.

    • @camelot2863
      @camelot2863 Před 6 lety +451

      AlfonsoB exactly, always remember, "if you design something idiot proof, nature will create a better idiot"

    • @gabrielathero
      @gabrielathero Před 6 lety +4

      true XD

    • @JorgetePanete
      @JorgetePanete Před 6 lety

      AlfonsoB idiot.*

  • @absurdengineering
    @absurdengineering Před 4 lety +314

    My mother had (likely still has) a cell counting “calculator” that was used to manually count blood cells in the field while staring into a microscope, touch-type-style. It didn’t have a motor, but it sure did clink-clunk, and it even had a bell. There was a little crank on the side used to reset counts to zero. It was “portable” - it’d fit into an oversized purse, turning into a first-class bludgeoning weapon. The case was made from bent heavy sheet steel.

    • @pumpkinspice5848
      @pumpkinspice5848 Před 2 lety +18

      Smart weapon

    • @itwontcomeout5678
      @itwontcomeout5678 Před 2 lety +32

      It could be used to analyze the blood samples of victims who were beaten to death with it!

    • @citruskeys
      @citruskeys Před 9 měsíci +5

      we still use clickers for manual blood and cell counting sometimes

  • @lwilton
    @lwilton Před 8 lety +3012

    There were several ways you could get those machines into an infinite or else very long calculation; the div stop button was handy for aborting most any calculation if you realized that you had fat-fingered the inputs before it was finished thinking.
    This is also what happened with early computers that didn't have a check for divide by zero. They would just "lock up" in an infinite loop until someone hit the reset key. They didn't blow up, or go insane, or any of those things that newspapermen and authors and Hollywood screen writers claimed they did.

    • @SianaGearz
      @SianaGearz Před 6 lety +17

      Wait a second. What 'early computer' had a hardware divider?

    • @absalomdraconis
      @absalomdraconis Před 6 lety +168

      Siana Gearz : This could happen with software algorithms, not just hardware implementations.

    • @sunnohh
      @sunnohh Před 6 lety +63

      Siana Gearz well, you recently watched a video about such a device....

    • @manictiger
      @manictiger Před 6 lety +74

      It's probably still how it's done, except the 'stop div' is automatic and it just happens in fractions of a millisecond, now. Things don't work on magic. Computers are still just essentially very fancy calculators.

    • @wesleyhurd3574
      @wesleyhurd3574 Před 6 lety +69

      If someone was dumb enough to accidentally put a mechanical calculator like this into a loop, get distracted and walk away for a coffee break, it might damage the machine. The electric motor is probably not designed to dissipate the heat caused by continuous non-stop operation. So the motor could burn out, releasing a puff of smoke and the smell of burning insulation. Not as dramatic as flames shooting out, but it is a realistic scenario.

  • @Rich-on6fe
    @Rich-on6fe Před 8 lety +4009

    That's incredible that they foresaw the whole information revolution and popularity of youtube etc.

    • @bruceluiz
      @bruceluiz Před 7 lety +84

      I wonder if anyone has actually blamed Satan or another mythological creature for given infinite feat lololol

    • @leocomerford
      @leocomerford Před 7 lety +55

      I won't believe it until I see the Like, Subscribe and Comment buttons.

    • @burtosis
      @burtosis Před 6 lety +3

      Lmao at this. Made the video.

    • @CrazyBrick30
      @CrazyBrick30 Před 6 lety +28

      And all they did with that priceless information was make a button on a mechanical calculator for it, rather than become billionaires.

    • @Jeyricho
      @Jeyricho Před 6 lety +33

      Clearly dividing by zero does NOT catch machines on fire. It gives you the ability to glimpse the future

  • @ProvingDemons
    @ProvingDemons Před 5 lety +52

    You genius you have cracked perpetual motion!

  • @jimshaw899
    @jimshaw899 Před 2 lety +53

    When I was an intern, we got a new one of these in the engineering department. I hesitate to disclose the year. I was young and now I am old.
    Who else but a college intern would try dividing by zero on the first day of its use? Off the Friden went to the unstoppable quotient races. After a couple of minutes, I realized there was no way provided to stop it. No "div-stop' key on our early model. I had to pull the plug. No one else could stop it, despite repeated attempts. It had cost so much, all were afraid to break it.
    We had to call for Friden service to reset the machine. He explained that it was a good thing I unplugged it because the internal motor was only rated for 'intermittant duty.' No, it probably would not have caught fire, but it would have overheated, likely damaging the motor windings. Expect smoke!
    Epilogue: We later got the first Friden model that could do square route. I swear you could have sold tickets to watch that machine work. Basically, it did square route the same way we would do it on paper, a sort of trial-by-square. The carriage did this amusing dance, but sure enough, it worked.
    Square route was rather "like a dog walking on its hind legs; it didn't do it well, but was amazing it did it at all." And it achieved the correct answer.

    • @AureliusR
      @AureliusR Před rokem +1

      I don't think I've ever met an engineer that calls it a "square route"

    • @jimshaw899
      @jimshaw899 Před rokem +7

      @@AureliusR Good grief! Did I write that? My face feels hot. I'll blame it on Grammarly. I should surrender my PE licenses in OH and FL.

    • @AureliusR
      @AureliusR Před rokem +2

      @@jimshaw899 Heh. We all make mistakes. I wasn't sure if it was a dialect thing or something, but I was pretty sure "root" was universal math language 🤔

    • @MattMcIrvin
      @MattMcIrvin Před 4 měsíci +1

      By the time I went to school, they no longer taught that square-root method that the Friden used, so I never learned it. I tried learning it and doing it by hand just recently, tried to see if I could approximate the square root of 2 and, wow, it's fine for small numbers of output digits but it gets harder rapidly as it goes on.
      (What I *did* learn, outside of school actually, was the other method where you take your first guess, divide it into the number, average your guess with the result and get a closer guess, then repeat. That actually is more efficient at least for large numbers, since it converges pretty fast; it's equivalent to Newton's method for finding the positive real root of x^2-c=0; but it was harder to automate with a mechanical calculator, since you'd need to store and recall intermediate results while you do whole long divisions.)

  • @gokartbuyer
    @gokartbuyer Před 6 lety +2586

    Is it me or does anyone else find this incredibly satisfying to listen to?

    • @RobertShamansky
      @RobertShamansky Před 6 lety +61

      It’s just because that sound is very similar to one which you can hear when the ATM counts the money you will get )

    • @aaronolit4841
      @aaronolit4841 Před 6 lety +4

      Роберт Шаманский pretty sure hes talking about when he presses the keys lol

    • @gokartbuyer
      @gokartbuyer Před 6 lety +24

      genericwhitemale both actually, I love the mechanical sound. The sound it makes when he presses the keys reminds me those old white keyboards from way back. I love the noise it makes counting too.

    • @Qwertworks
      @Qwertworks Před 5 lety +1

      Kind of reminds me a bit of the computer sounds in the first alien movie … it sounds so retro-futuristic! I love that

    • @Qwertworks
      @Qwertworks Před 5 lety

      czcams.com/video/2ywWFvjE-yU/video.html

  • @HazeAnderson
    @HazeAnderson Před 6 lety +6926

    355 / 113 = PIE? And this whole time I have been using an oven ...

    • @csabika07
      @csabika07 Před 6 lety +312

      It's an approximation. It is not actually the pie as pie is an irrational number which means you can't give its value in a division form.

    • @Michael-Hammerschmidt
      @Michael-Hammerschmidt Před 6 lety +152

      My first thought: Why have you been using an oven?? What even does that mean... My second thought: I'm so dumb...

    • @TheMangoMangoMango
      @TheMangoMangoMango Před 6 lety +32

      Csaba Kocsis by definition Pi is the circumference of any circle divided by its diameter.

    • @csabika07
      @csabika07 Před 6 lety +29

      TheMangoMangoMango you are right. Let me correct myself. Cant be given in of form of division between two integers.

    • @jacketylon
      @jacketylon Před 6 lety +7

      Haze Anderson Pi, and no... It's approximate to pi bit it is not pi
      EDIT: Oops, I didn't read the whole comment

  • @VELVETPERSON
    @VELVETPERSON Před 5 lety +525

    You have a strange piano

  • @Slferon
    @Slferon Před 5 lety +6

    0 divided by 0
    Calculator:
    *MINIGUN NOISE*

  • @hifijohn
    @hifijohn Před 7 lety +360

    now people know when electronic calculators came out in the early 70's they were considered so amazing.

    • @JohnSmith-eo5sp
      @JohnSmith-eo5sp Před 2 lety +26

      Desktop digital electronic calculators came out in the mid late 1960s

    • @MattMcIrvin
      @MattMcIrvin Před 4 měsíci

      @@JohnSmith-eo5sp They were expensive at first, though. I was just reading up on the HP 9100, the first really successful scientific calculator (with trig and hyperbolic functions, etc.; it was also fully programmable though there had been a few successful programmables already) from 1968, and realized it cost twice as much as a new car.

  • @denisethasder8193
    @denisethasder8193 Před 6 lety +806

    A wonder of technology, even in this day

    • @eta10tp1
      @eta10tp1 Před 5 lety +55

      I know exactly how regular calculators work... but this thing is a fucking blackbox for me WTF

    • @eta10tp1
      @eta10tp1 Před 5 lety +5

      @@BenevolentPasserby yeah so true

    • @TheGrandmaster1
      @TheGrandmaster1 Před 5 lety +12

      This thing is certainly more interesting than a boring regular calculator

  • @gregory891
    @gregory891 Před 5 lety +25

    Nice to see one in action, we had one in my parents’ office when I was a kid. The sound of it working and the decimal slider brings back memories.

  • @berkeleygang1834
    @berkeleygang1834 Před 5 lety +27

    My father had one of these at work. I did this same experiment. I freaked out when the calculator started smoking. I don't remember what I did to make it stop. I was sure I was going to get in trouble.

  • @jayglenn837
    @jayglenn837 Před 6 lety +3733

    Because Division by 0 approaches infinity. What a beautiful mechanical way of expressing that.
    Note: dividing by 0 does not =infinity because infinity is not a number. Dividing by 0 _approaches_ infinity. If this was not so all math would be broken.

    • @puskywastaken
      @puskywastaken Před 6 lety +10

      Schner1 yup

    • @skyebirb
      @skyebirb Před 6 lety +58

      What if we were to create a new variable, calling it N, that is equal to the number of numbers in aleph null? Would that equal infinity?

    • @haraldhey9210
      @haraldhey9210 Před 6 lety +199

      Dividing by 0 also could approach negative infinity.

    • @Nathcreep
      @Nathcreep Před 6 lety +40

      You can’t approach infinity has it is infinite, approaching something that has no end not beginning is impossible

    • @jonathandpg6115
      @jonathandpg6115 Před 6 lety +268

      no you can "approach it" without hitting it. Approaching something means you are going towards it which doesn't mean you have to be any close. It isn't "close"to infinity but APPROACHING.
      The terminology is correct

  • @SpaceCowboy57
    @SpaceCowboy57 Před 6 lety +1353

    This would make a sick drum track for a black metal song.

    • @rafaelmorales4534
      @rafaelmorales4534 Před 5 lety +23

      grindcore

    • @chad_dogedoge
      @chad_dogedoge Před 5 lety +17

      Swedish crustpunk

    • @mariomario9907
      @mariomario9907 Před 5 lety +22

      Sounds more like a machine gun soundtrack to me lol

    • @Qui-9
      @Qui-9 Před 5 lety +1

      🤘

    • @SergeantExtreme
      @SergeantExtreme Před 5 lety +15

      @mario mario
      Black metal double pedal double bass literally sounds like a machine gun. Just look up "Laser Cannon Deth Sentence" by Dethklok to see what I mean.

  • @nachode8007
    @nachode8007 Před 2 lety +3

    Imagine showing up to your first day of Algebra class and you whip this big boy out

  • @jcortese3300
    @jcortese3300 Před 5 lety +11

    What a delightful machine ... my dad used to fix devices like this for a living.

  • @scowell
    @scowell Před 7 lety +2008

    Grandpa had one of these at the company... he could get it to play a drum cadence... some certain numbers, not sure if div or mult, played a nice cadence! Enjoyed the video, thanks for posting!

    • @CuriousMarc
      @CuriousMarc  Před 6 lety +418

      It's called the Friden March. I think I found how to recreate it. Need to make video of it. [Edit: I did, here: czcams.com/video/-MLQ0yI1BrQ/video.html ]

    • @mcdodong3038
      @mcdodong3038 Před 6 lety +8

      I should subscribe for this one I guess

    • @johnplante1187
      @johnplante1187 Před 6 lety +3

      CuriousMarc My parents told me about the Frieden March from their Air Force days

    • @gmbueno
      @gmbueno Před 5 lety +2

      CuriousMarc sooo?

    • @elansleazebaganno
      @elansleazebaganno Před 5 lety +1

      LEFT... LEFT... LEFT.

  • @mandolinic
    @mandolinic Před 6 lety +139

    I remember using a hand cranked Ohdner machine at school some 45 years ago. Division was exactly the process your machine went through, except all movements had to be done by hand. I nearly broke my wrist when I tried dividing by zero.

    • @D_U_N_E
      @D_U_N_E Před 5 lety +55

      Except you didn't have a stop button, and to this day you are still cranking.

  • @SmokinwithKasket
    @SmokinwithKasket Před 5 lety +7

    Brings back fond memories. My grandfather had two of these of which I inherited both of them slightly different models. That was 40 years ago I was a teenager and I spent many hours playing with these machines not fully understanding what they are doing. I don’t ever know what become of the two that I had. But I sure miss playing with them.

  • @joeo6378
    @joeo6378 Před 3 lety +2

    I have no idea why an infinite loop in a mechanical device like this is so satisfying but my goodness I love it.

  • @kjamison5951
    @kjamison5951 Před 6 lety +98

    What a truly beautiful piece of engineering!
    Machine-gun mathematics.

  • @HPhelpsGates
    @HPhelpsGates Před 6 lety +27

    Hey, this brings back memories. Back about 1963 they had a whole room full of these at the computer center in our college (used for classes, I guess). Some of us were in there once and one of us (it wasn't me) suggested we see what happened if you divided by zero. As you see in the video (spoiler alert!) it starts cranking and cranking. After a couple of minutes we got nervous and unplugged it before it could catch fire. Probably when it was plugged back in, it would keep cranking... I just hope whoever was in charge of these knew about the zero-divide escape button!

  • @celsojr
    @celsojr Před 2 lety +1

    When I was a 10 years old child, my father gave me a strange old digital calculator, wich had that strange function to hide the floating point until you press a button to show the fractions. When I divided some number by zero, it did not showed "E" or something like that.. just stucked on zero...but imagine what I discovered that when you pressed the floating point option. It was just like you evidenced in this mechanical calculator. Amazing! It took to me 35 years to find another machine that explained to me what was really happening, since not even my math professors could do it. Thanks a lot!!!!

  • @aliquandoinsanireiucundume9017

    Two great things regarding this video. Firstly this is one of the best videos I’ve ever seen on CZcams and secondly this machine is one of the coolest and most beautiful things on earth!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • @shopdog831
    @shopdog831 Před 6 lety +521

    It's even idiot proof

    • @neurofiedyamato8763
      @neurofiedyamato8763 Před 6 lety +6

      I laughed at this comment a bit too much.

    • @vaskedagame880
      @vaskedagame880 Před 5 lety +4

      Get yours now!
      It makes calculating a pice of cake! A child could do it!
      Comes in 5 diffrent colours and is even *idiot proof!*

    • @Nugcon
      @Nugcon Před 5 lety +2

      lmao

  • @smiley235
    @smiley235 Před 6 lety +139

    I always lose my calculator at work, I need one of these.

    • @boring7823
      @boring7823 Před 5 lety +5

      www.amazon.co.uk/GIANT-DISPLAY-BUTTON-DESKTOP-CALCULATOR/dp/B004SGOD3W
      Approx size: 8inch X 12inch

    • @atwistedcat6233
      @atwistedcat6233 Před 5 lety +3

      @@boring7823 you're the hero everybody needs

  • @PraveenSingh-vw5ni
    @PraveenSingh-vw5ni Před 11 měsíci +1

    Thankful to this channel we get to see such incredible machines which otherwise is beyond reach for majority of the people.

  • @ttiization
    @ttiization Před 5 lety +3

    Quite accurate. Dividing by a big number results in a very small result. The opposite aplys, where dividing by a very small number gives a very bug result. Zero is a very, very, very small number, so you get a very, very, very big number, thus infinity

  • @sirMAXX77
    @sirMAXX77 Před 6 lety +97

    *machine implodes and creates a black hole*
    That is a beautiful machine, btw. The engineering that must have taken to build that is undoubtedly staggering. I know even micro processors are still machines with moving parts, but with this bulky, heavy machine, it's much more satisfying to watch.

    • @mibdev
      @mibdev Před 6 lety +8

      Moving parts in processors? huh?

    • @jetaddict420
      @jetaddict420 Před 6 lety +10

      Bero256 yes the electrons create physical wear

    • @dragonvarine7553
      @dragonvarine7553 Před 6 lety

      MibMoot Electrons

    • @shawnpitman876
      @shawnpitman876 Před 2 lety

      @@dragonvarine7553 By that definition then the wires in your walls are mechanical and have moving parts.

    • @mewmew8932
      @mewmew8932 Před 6 měsíci

      They are@@shawnpitman876

  • @johnclawed
    @johnclawed Před 6 lety +116

    I'd like to take that with me to take a test.

    • @TheArtistInside
      @TheArtistInside Před 6 lety +4

      I want to take the BC Calc exam with this hunk of metal

    • @thomashambly3718
      @thomashambly3718 Před 5 lety +1

      Just a totally silent test room,"dadadadaddadadadadadadaDINGdaddadadadadadadadada"

  • @hwatson069
    @hwatson069 Před 5 lety +5

    Once, I was writing a program for a PLC -5, there was a division. Shortly after I compiled and went back to run mode, the PLC faulted shutting the whole plant down. Upon investigation, I found that the denominator sometimes would go to zero, which caused the fault. I solved the problem by restricting the range of the denominator to >1.

  • @lefterismagkoutas4430
    @lefterismagkoutas4430 Před 5 lety

    This is better than anything that I expected. Thank you my recommended list for bringing me here while I wait for avengers 4 trailer..

  • @TheDavo10001
    @TheDavo10001 Před 6 lety +1444

    "made specially for idiots making CZcams videos" LOL

    • @almawade492
      @almawade492 Před 6 lety +44

      "They had lots of foresight."

    • @ritikjain4256
      @ritikjain4256 Před 6 lety +4

      And makes a youtube video himself.

    • @awawpogi3036
      @awawpogi3036 Před 6 lety +1

      TheDavo10001 and you have 355 likes in your comment.

    • @benemles
      @benemles Před 5 lety +2

      @@ritikjain4256 Oh God you are the biggest r/woooosh I ever saw

    • @sapaajabolehhh
      @sapaajabolehhh Před 5 lety

      the inventor of this machine even could foretell the users in the future

  • @ctyoung0271
    @ctyoung0271 Před 6 lety +10

    This is wonderful! I had no idea a mechanical calculator even existed, but now I'm fascinated! Thanks for a great video!

  • @markgreco1962
    @markgreco1962 Před 5 lety

    Your enthusiasm for everything nerdy is utterly unbelievably fantastic

  • @textech4056
    @textech4056 Před 2 lety +1

    I worked for Friden Inc inc 1972 in Houston Texas. I repaired the rotary calculator among their other products. Friden made a Nixie tube electronic calculator in 72 and the mechanicals were slowly being phased out. The electronic calculator was $1500. in 1972 and that was very expensive.

  • @ffggddss
    @ffggddss Před 6 lety +55

    Nice demo!! The distinctive noise of these machines is, I believe, the source of the phrase, "crunching the numbers."
    BTW, what you're calling "overflow," I would call an "underflow," because it results from a subtraction that takes the accumulator "below" 0.
    Addition that gives a result that takes the accumulator "above" all 9's, would be an overflow.
    But the distinction is somewhat moot because, in practice, the machine produces leading "9"s, as though it's a very large number, even though that really means a negative number.
    Fred

    • @TheJacklikesvideos
      @TheJacklikesvideos Před 2 lety +2

      Stack overflow is the correct terminology. Rolling under is considered expanding beyond the bounds. This is a common glitched function in videogames; sending a variable outside of its dimensions resulting in a binary rollover. Whether the game is tricked into subtracting without stopping at zero, or adding after there are no leading bits left, it's the same core computational error. I liked the term 'stack underflow' at one point myself, but you struck the point of the lack of difference in the distinction.

    • @Xentillus
      @Xentillus Před 2 lety +4

      @@TheJacklikesvideos The use of the term stack overflow is used to mean to overflow the stack, a specific type of memory. If you had 255 overflowing to 0 after an increment, that would be an integer overflow. -128 going to 127 from a decrement would be an integer underflow.

    • @McFrax
      @McFrax Před 2 lety +5

      ​@@TheJacklikesvideos This has nothing to do with stack. We are talking about integer underflow or overflow here. Stack overflow is about accessing memory that doesn't belong to stack, it has nothing to do with arithmetics.

    • @proloycodes
      @proloycodes Před 2 lety +1

      @@TheJacklikesvideos somebody doesn't know what he/she/they are talking about

  • @bitrot42
    @bitrot42 Před 6 lety +4

    Great video and explanation! The game Human Resource Machine gave me an intuitive feel for iterating simple operations to form a complex process, and it was great to see the real thing here.

  • @BalaenicepsRex3
    @BalaenicepsRex3 Před 2 lety +2

    Beautiful machine, I had no idea these existed. Great video!

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    Nice Friden! Excellent video! fun to watch!

  • @randomtronic
    @randomtronic Před 6 lety +9

    Great video mate! Love the clunking sounds!

  • @Unmannedair
    @Unmannedair Před 6 lety +4

    This is so cool. Way better than the calculator I had in school.

  • @usmcfutball
    @usmcfutball Před 6 lety +1

    In the 70s I owned a hand-held, battery-operated calculator (Texas Instruments?) that would count from 1 on up if I divided by zero. Like a stopwatch. Always fascinated me. This is the first concrete info I've ever run across that explains why. Thank you!

  • @FLACguy
    @FLACguy Před 2 lety

    My Dad used to repair those back in the 60s and 70s! If I show him this video he will cry with excitement!

  • @D3fcon141
    @D3fcon141 Před 6 lety +3

    I watched the whole video because you risked such a valuable antique piece of equipment for our entertainment!
    Edit: That's an incredible piece of machinery. It sounds beautifully mechanical, like a steampunk factory. :)

  • @AlainHubert
    @AlainHubert Před 6 lety +191

    Hello Marc. I have a small challenge for you: can you find out what numbers Jack Lemmon entered on the Friden to get that exact drum beat, when the carriage moves to the left 1, 2, 1-2-3, 1, 2, 1-2-3 spaces ? Being a drummer, I'm curious what those numbers were... The Friden could make a primitive "programmable" mechanical drum machine ! lol

    • @CuriousMarc
      @CuriousMarc  Před 6 lety +84

      [Edit: Friden March video here: czcams.com/video/-MLQ0yI1BrQ/video.html ]
      @AlainHubert: Great catch! I had not noticed the rhythm on the video, but that's indeed what makes that scene work so well. I'd just put in something like 5551155511 and divide by 1. It will do 6 trials until overflow when on the 5's and just 2 trials for the 1, as explained in the video. That should give you the rhythm you are looking for! [Edit: I just tried it, works great, it's hilarious. It must be what was called the "Friden March". I need to make a video of it!]

    • @ezra-keto
      @ezra-keto Před 5 lety +3

      @@CuriousMarc dude where's the video

  • @lunaponta594
    @lunaponta594 Před 2 lety

    your voice was one of the things that kept me watching

  • @adammiller2246
    @adammiller2246 Před 2 lety +1

    I remember going to my Dad's place of work and watching him use this machine. He was very experienced in using it, so all you heard was the clackity clack noise in the office. I miss my Dad.

  • @Mae_Dastardly
    @Mae_Dastardly Před 6 lety +21

    In slowmo it sounds like ambiance from a Silent Hill game

  • @tannershackelford27
    @tannershackelford27 Před 6 lety +21

    I kept saying "you're gonna break it you're gonna break it" but you had an emergency stop dont do that you scared me

  • @cartler
    @cartler Před 2 lety +1

    This is a beautiful piece of machinery

  • @jtveg
    @jtveg Před 2 lety

    Fascinating stuff.
    Thanks so much for sharing. 😉👌🏻

  • @bedemiller
    @bedemiller Před 2 lety +5

    Did anyone else get recommended this after watching the LinusTech Tips video on this calculator?

  • @traso56
    @traso56 Před 6 lety +5

    got this on random feed and now i want it for the sake of having it

  • @PlasmaOne
    @PlasmaOne Před 2 lety

    Such a beautiful sound when its operating

  • @Rocksaplenty
    @Rocksaplenty Před 2 lety

    What a beautiful machine. Thanks for sharing.

  • @pauldevery6173
    @pauldevery6173 Před 6 lety +5

    Cool. My father had one at home when I was a child in the 1970s.

  • @theredstormer8078
    @theredstormer8078 Před 4 lety +9

    When I first saw this, I never expected I'd have one, but the other day on the way to school I saw two at an antique shop just sitting on the asphalt. Turned out to both be ST10's that were left outside. After school, I rode my bike over there bought both for a total of only $30 and I'm now trying to restore them. Will definitely do this exactly once I finish.

  • @The_Gabinator
    @The_Gabinator Před 2 lety

    More exciting than I thought it would be. Niice

  • @FozIrenics
    @FozIrenics Před 2 lety

    One of the coolest things I've ever seen.

  • @descent8275
    @descent8275 Před 6 lety +44

    dang! would love to use one in schools today, just to get everybodys nerves wrecked haha

    • @CODMarioWarfare
      @CODMarioWarfare Před 6 lety +8

      It's not technically disallowed for the SATs...

    • @-nathun8507
      @-nathun8507 Před 6 lety

      CODMarioWarfare this needs to happen now

    • @-nathun8507
      @-nathun8507 Před 6 lety +1

      CODMarioWarfare jusssst need to buy one

    • @-nathun8507
      @-nathun8507 Před 6 lety

      CODMarioWarfare I’m broke

  • @psychastria
    @psychastria Před 2 lety +9

    A mechanical calculator like that is more impressive than modern electronic calculators because of the amount of engineering that went into constructing something like that.

    • @lightlysal
      @lightlysal Před 2 lety +1

      Do you realize there's more engineering in digital electronics than these? It's just more hidden in electronics...
      It's probably just because you think it sounds cool, but you might wanna reword it

    • @floppaquest4916
      @floppaquest4916 Před 2 lety +1

      @@lightlysal Making a complex mechanical device is more impressive than coding some lines.

    • @guesswho399
      @guesswho399 Před 2 lety +1

      @@floppaquest4916 and how do you think the lines of code are executed behind the scenes? Every computer is still to today an electromechanical wonder.... (not wanting to say that the pure mechanical isn't top notch - typing this on an old style mechanical keyboard ...

    • @stabbypandarogue8164
      @stabbypandarogue8164 Před 2 lety

      @@floppaquest4916 a CPU which run those code lines are far more impressive than this mechanical machine
      Heck, the language behind those code lines are just as complex as this machinery
      Your comparison is not apple-to-apple

  • @thomasw.6705
    @thomasw.6705 Před 5 lety

    Wow! I love its powerful movements and sound.

  • @freddiemercurybulsara3876

    Absolutely genius inventor, no words.

  • @gracecalis5421
    @gracecalis5421 Před 5 lety +3

    That's one beautiful piece of engineering. I'd love to have that just to listen to it whir and do its thing.

  • @MattSiegel
    @MattSiegel Před 8 lety +963

    haha, great! :D excellent stupidity-to-entertainment ratio ;)

  • @krishankaushik2400
    @krishankaushik2400 Před 9 měsíci

    I love retro tech. This is marelous. This taught me so simply the actual function and what division really means.

  • @smullins17
    @smullins17 Před 10 měsíci

    thank you for making this.

  • @martiddy
    @martiddy Před 6 lety +780

    It would have been hilarious if you have edited the video with the calculator catching on fire after dividing 😁

    • @Reminji
      @Reminji Před 6 lety +37

      Erik Lönnrot damn what did vaporwave do to you??

    • @michaelstout8501
      @michaelstout8501 Před 6 lety +17

      Remi It made him F E E L

    • @inspector5122
      @inspector5122 Před 6 lety

      Erik Lönnrot you cant game on a Mac

    • @MiiMaker
      @MiiMaker Před 6 lety +6

      you can, There are so many games on Macintosh Plus you could play.

    • @punker4Real
      @punker4Real Před 5 lety

      Vapor Wave - sama that is whay happened to old gas machines. they caught fire when the gas prices went to 4$ a gallon

  • @GregoryTheGr8ster
    @GregoryTheGr8ster Před 8 lety +7

    Jack Lemmon seems utterly mesmerized by his STW10 as it calculates 355/133.

  • @nasreenchowdhury3273
    @nasreenchowdhury3273 Před 5 lety

    Found this on recommend. Not disappointed.

  • @weskal5490
    @weskal5490 Před 5 lety

    What a fantastic machine and a brilliant piece of human ingenuity.

  • @Faolon-dx2ft
    @Faolon-dx2ft Před 2 lety +3

    It's amazing how purely mechanical mechanisms can reliably calculate complex maths.

  • @dhardtofind
    @dhardtofind Před 6 lety +6

    It overflows!

  • @ericanderson2482
    @ericanderson2482 Před 2 lety

    Cool to see a video with a Frieden calculator. I have one but haven't fired it up in many years. Always cool to watch. Thanks.

  • @stephan5925
    @stephan5925 Před 5 lety

    What a machine...beautiful! And that noise...so cool!

  • @louispoche4312
    @louispoche4312 Před 6 lety +120

    when I was a little kid my father had one in his office.. I would push all the 9s then multiply and then all the 9s again... how long would that take to complete???? and was there a way to stop it????

    • @unphazed_
      @unphazed_ Před 6 lety +62

      Yes there is a way to stop it, use the anti-idiot button

    • @louispoche4312
      @louispoche4312 Před 6 lety +24

      I obviously didn't care when I was little, but I am glad I didn't break it anyway :-)

    • @oddpotato4038
      @oddpotato4038 Před 5 lety +2

      I'm glad that I wasn't in your place when you're still a kid because I would break it for the sake of curiosity 😂

  • @rushilkisoon
    @rushilkisoon Před 2 lety +7

    Who else is here after Linus Tech Tips disappointed us by not showing a demo?

  • @donmoore7785
    @donmoore7785 Před 4 lety

    Very cool machine and demonstration. Great movie too.

  • @NanoMine
    @NanoMine Před 5 lety +1

    This is probably more complicated than the modern electronic calculator. Loved the noise so much, imaging sitting in an exam and using this to do calculations.

  • @brasilianguy5437
    @brasilianguy5437 Před 4 lety +3

    Very nice. As a side lesson, I also learn that 355/113 is pretty near PI() considering a simple division of two integers.

  • @luck3949
    @luck3949 Před 6 lety +14

    My teather told us a story, that someone broke an arothmometer by dividing by zero. He told as that as a reason to read documentation first.

    • @Cobalt985
      @Cobalt985 Před 6 lety +1

      Luck So in other words, RTFM? Lol

  • @ryanm.191
    @ryanm.191 Před 2 lety +2

    These things absolutely fascinate me with how they work

  • @JustinDuijn
    @JustinDuijn Před 6 lety +43

    Now; Let it loop outside Without stopping.

  • @boshgoria
    @boshgoria Před 2 lety +17

    What’s important is that the engineers that made this machine understood how to divide by zero, and were able to implement that into a device. This machine’s soul purpose is to show us what happens when you divide by zero.

  • @Piqus3
    @Piqus3 Před 8 měsíci

    What a piece of mechanical engineering, truly amazing.

  • @mikecurtis11
    @mikecurtis11 Před 2 lety

    No kidding, when I saw that machine, I thought about the office scene from the movie The Apartment! Glad you added that scene at the end. I didn't really know what those machines were, but somehow the movie came to mind immediately.

  • @deluxeassortment
    @deluxeassortment Před 6 lety +6

    this machine would probably help with the US budget

  • @8180634
    @8180634 Před 2 lety +9

    The engineering that went into this seems more impressive than microchips to me.

    • @8180634
      @8180634 Před 2 lety

      @Keshuel probably, I'm a computer engineer not mechanical. But consider this thing was designed by hand on paper, super impressive.

    • @alexandrutereify
      @alexandrutereify Před 2 lety

      @@8180634 they work the same really. Decimal gates instead of binary gates. Its like a processor gate translated to mechanical movement, rather than electricity passing through silicone.

    • @8180634
      @8180634 Před 2 lety

      @@alexandrutereify Indeed I get how it's mechanically possible, but having to figure it all out on paper, design all the parts on paper, make the parts all fit together perfectly as a package on paper, etc.. you can't simulate it but it's got to work, that's a whole lot of memorization and work!

  • @Jeff-Vader_head_of_catering

    What an awesome calculator!

  • @Rivenworld
    @Rivenworld Před 2 lety

    What a fantastic looking machine, love this...

  • @hornetluca
    @hornetluca Před 6 lety +12

    I didn't even know that this device existed