That Strange Calculator Again

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Oooh, I've only just spotted that, Nick, now you have pointed it out!

The wear makes the graduations hard to read and I'd rather assumed its numbers all go up to the number of holes as the outer and centre scales do.

Looking more closely, it gives three figures-0 on the intermediate ring, with its 9 and 4.5 points drilled for… what? Locking-pins? A moveable pin that makes the circle the pinion of a 1-to-number gear? Arithmetic to the base-9, or base-10?

The thing does not look thick enough to hold much internal mechanism but it must have at least a base-plate; and there might be enough depth for simple gears formed in the undersided of the visible parts, or stamped from sheet-metal.

The inner of the two "blue" holes between the printed 4 & 5, 14 & 15, one or two others, and peeping out from under the spring, look more like small rivets than holes – either holding it all together or "gear teeth" . So does the right-hand "yellow" hole. All leading to Farmboy's ideas.

If this is so it does make more sense of the direction-instruction arrows and the detent.

Someone went to a lot of trouble to design this device, and someone else used it regularly. I reckon the Antikythera Mechanism less abstruse!

"Copyright" or "patent" ? The mechanism as such could not really be patented because the concept of bar-type, cylindrical and circular, special-purpose, slide-rules, and cypher-key setters, was already well-established by 1908. Copyrighting the printed matter was probably the only way to ensure other makes were not available.

Anyway, I am following the lead hinted at above, of it perhaps being a pharmacological instrument.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi Nigel, well if the red and yellow ones are holding gears or maybe little dogs to prevent it being turned anti-clockwise, it would make sense of their random looking positions and the blue and green ones that Martin suggests make logical sense. Not always easy to see depth when it's just a flat picture. Thanks for your replies.

Regards Nick.

[FarmboyParticipant @farmboy]

There's a better picture and a video at the LINK that MichaelG posted last year.

The small dots on the surround that Nick has arrowed in blue are said to be pins holding it down to the wooden base.

The two spots near the numbers 9 on the ring appear to be slotted screw heads but I can't work out their purpose.

There doesn't seem to be any complicated mechanism involved other than what is visible.

This is just further observation and speculation

EDIT:

Further observation: In the ring of dimples on the centre disc the one at position 30 is a through hole which lines up with either a hole or mark at both postions 0 on the dial ring.

Mike.

Edited By Farmboy on 14/01/2022 17:40:35

[Ches Green UKParticipant @chesgreenuk]

The only moving part appears to be the inner disc ie it rotates clockwise?

The ring with the 20 large holes next to the inner disc shows a grey bottom to those holes. I wonder if that grey bottom material is attached directly to the inner disc ie it rotates with it. Were there, at one time, symbols on the grey holes?

The centres of the grey holes seem lightly worn.

The grey holes next to 8 and 9 seem to be slightly dished (under high magnification)…could there have been a circular insert in there?

All the fraction denominators divide in to 240, the number of pennies in an old Pound.

The small table at the bottom right could be Lbs and Ounces.

I still have no idea what device this is though. ;-(

Ches

Edit: The dishing appearance is possibly just a shadow.

 

 

 

Edited By Ches Green UK on 14/01/2022 18:18:15

Edited By Ches Green UK on 14/01/2022 18:20:06

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

My guess is that the larger of the holes, in the internediate ring, are to take a finger or, say, the end of pencil – as in the old telephone dials. That would account for light wear.

The holes in the central disc are for the detent, and by its shape I think it was meant to function as a rather crude ratchet.

Not sure what that curious wire loop in the middle does. It could be a friction device to give a more positive motion.

I don't think the wooden base in the photo here is its own but is a table – the image on Reddit shows more of that, with one or two other objects.

A pity it no longer bears its maker's name – that could have been useful. It might have been on some part long lost, of course, but I'd have thought it would have been with the rest of the printing.

[Mark Simpson 1Participant @marksimpson1]

I've been really intrigued by this and have looked for relationships between 18, 9 and 30, following on from the analytical observations of Farmboy… and peoples wondering whether it's for adding or dividing things…

"Inner disc indentations numbered 1 to 30
Outer "telephone dial" ring numbered 0 to 9 : 0 to 9
Fixed scale numbered 0 to 18 "

No idea if there is any relevance in this but maybe it will give someone smarter a hint?

There are 18 inches in a cubit, 9 inches in a span, also 3 palms in a span, 3 inches in a palm)

does this help perhaps?

[Oven ManParticipant @ovenman]

Despite what the video shows, the design of the "ratchet" to me indicates that the inside disc should rotate anticlockwise. There is a pin that would stop the spring moving downwards if the disc is rotated clockwise.

The fractions are interesting, in some sections they are all the same, just exxpressed differently, 1/2, 4/8, 3/6, 6/12.

Peter

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

I've just had a look at the video – sorry, did things in rather the wrong order there.

I don't know if the video had any sound. It didn't at this end.

It would seem that the detent might be set manually then. Lift it and rotating the dial pulls the disc round but that's probably just by friction. What was obvious is at least one hole in one of the two rotated parts, visible in certain positions, presumably allowing the dial and disc to be locked together by a removeable pin, but he was turning the thing continually and a bit rapidly for me to see any pattern.

'

The problem I can see with trying to analyse it by, perhaps, a speadsheet or yet a working copy, is the sheer number of possible combinations and not knowing exactly what locking-pin holes do exist and where. Nor how to use it.

If it were not for that pesky arithmetic I'd be inclined to think this is a simple encypherment device, well before Arthur Scherbius' 1918 invention of what became the 'Egnima' system*.

This because the Science Museum search revealed a very simple device looking like this one, and older, but purely by letters, e.g "a" becomes "f" , etc. Very easy to crack from simple word-analysis if it merely slides one intact aphabet several letters past another. Far harder if the equivalent alphabet is scrambled, and even harder still by changing to a different equivalent, denoted only by a need-to-know cypher-key number, at intervals.

I do not know though, how advanced codes and cyphers were in Edwardian times.

So that is only a wild guess and I am still inclined to think it was some trade-calculator.

'

'

*{Enigma's principle, described here very sketchily, uses multiple scrambling. It was an electro-mechanical machine holding a line of rotors. Each rotor swapped each letter of the alphabet for another by fixed but random internal wires between an input and output contact, then pitched the output against a third letter on the next rotor, which changed it to a 4th… and that's just 2 rotors.

So let's say we type A into Rotor 1 whose A input contact goes to output R; then that meets input Z on Rotor 2 which obligingly turns it to D…. . Very secure but we can do even better. Let's call our cypher key RD, by outputs.

On some pre-determined date later, turn Rotor 2 against Rotor 1, so A still becomes R, but now meets B on R2 and becomes G…. Our new cypher key is RG – issued beforehand in a code-book which of course does not reveal the rotors' wiring.

Put 4 rotors together and breaking the cypher becomes formidably difficult because it is a gigantic mass of permutations changed at frequent intervals to a different rotor set, or the same re-ordered along their shaft. Cracking the Enigma codes was very much a matter of captured rotors and cypher-books, as much as the machine.]

[Robert DoddsParticipant @robertdodds43397]

I'm a long way from understanding this device but I do wonder whether it might have had some pins or similar that went into the small holes of the inner disc and circle and registered them in set positions for some setting purpose.
I'm intrigued by the number sets that are evident on the device, 12,16,20,48. all of which had monetary associations back in the day and additionally were associated with the avoirdupois weight system, ozs, lbs cwts. tons.
I recall the time when banks had scales to weigh your little blue bag of copper or silver coins and that one old penny weighed a third of an ounce so 48 weighed a pound and a pounds worth of pennies weighed five pound!
I am further intrigued by the fractions in the outer segments particularly the ones with an addition appended.
If you change the + sign to – and count the addendum as 1/48th ( 0.020833) in every case the resulting sum then equals the simple fractions in the same segment.

Segment 6 3/8 2/5 -6(0.020833) = 0.375

5/12 -2(0.020833) = 0.375

Has this got any significance?

Bob D

[FarmboyParticipant @farmboy]

More observations ( I really need to stop this and get to bed )

I think there may be a disc under the visible ones, with the dial ring attached to it by the two screws at positions 9 and perhaps by what appear to be rivets at 4.5. The whole disc pivots on the central screw and the inner disc is free to turn independantly. The small wire loop on the centre screw does look like a friction device, possibly to ensure the inner disc turns with the outer until it is locked by the detent. The signs of wear under the loop show it is in close contact with the disc.

I'm beginning to think it might be a one-off or prototype. There is sufficient, if slight, variation in the numbers to suggest they were hand drawn by a good draughtsman.

There must be some significance in the arrows indicating clockwise rotation. I wonder if it suggests some sort of progressive calculation. For just a simple static calculation it wouldn't seem to matter which way it is turned.

Mike.

[Robert DoddsParticipant @robertdodds43397]

I've just looked back at Grindstone Cowboys earlier link to reddit. Trawling down to KarenEiffel's response led me to an illustrated book of Rechnenmaschinen. Look a bit familiar?

Bob D

[brickyParticipant @bricky]

I havn't a clue to it's use or how it works but where the fractions have +1 to 9 attached does one take the number and using the lower table add the corresponding number to the fraction.If this is correct it would be a guess.

Frank

[Robert ButlerParticipant @robertbutler92161]

May not help but Adall based in Birmingham produced/sold Concentric Disc adding machines. a special purpose version which is used for a particular trade or unit of measure? There are parts missing as has already been established.

Robert Butler

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Nicholas Farr on 14/01/2022 15:33:16:

Hi, I have also noticed the 0-9 twice on the outer ring and wonder if they represent the tabulations at the bottom right, which only go up to 9 and 0 representing, well! I guess most people would take it as 0. The other thing I'm curious about is what look to be holes that I've arrowed in blue, green, red and yellow, the blue and green one alternate all the way round, maybe windowed cards or something like pointers, are pegged into them to give the answer to whatever this gadget may solve.

Regards Nick.

I agree the 1=16 to 9=144 is to do with the two 0 to 9 scales on the telephone dial.

The big picture is revealing:

Clicking on the big photo above to expand it shows:

• All the 'holes' on the outer tableau are rivets. (Nick's green and blue arrows point to examples)
• The four opposing objects on the dial are, or were, small screw-heads. (Nick's red arrows)
• One of Nick's yellow arrows is a through hole, the other is a rivet.
• The inner ring holes are all dimples, except the video shows one of them, No 30 under the spring clip in the photo, to be a through hole that sometimes aligns with another hole inside.
• I don't think it's home-made or a prototype. The number stamping looks professional and the metal under the dial holes seem to show signs of wear. It's been used, and I think is Nickel plated.

Too simple to be a general purpose calculating ring and the 'fractions' are weird. Unlikely to be a cypher device because it's base 16/144, not 26/36.

The two 0-9 scales may indicate modulo arithmetic (which is like a cypher disc), but the 0-19 scale suggest ratios 4:5 and 2:3, maybe 8:15.

None of this helps – still bewildered.

Dave

[Robert DoddsParticipant @robertdodds43397]

Worth a click on this site to see it in operation.

Note the right thumb on the black bar to stop the inner ring rotating until required

https://imgur.com/a/Nfe12p0

Bob D

[Robert DoddsParticipant @robertdodds43397]

Next stop should be The Arithmeum,. Bonn University. It has a museum of mechanical calculators, lots of them are circular and there are 10000 exhibits to check out. Some of the detail is in German so you may need some translation before calculation.

https://www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de/en/arithmeum.html,

Bob D

[CalumParticipant @calumgalleitch87969]

Probably worth saying, since it's been mentioned again – I'm quite sure this has nothing to do with music in any way; none of the numbers bear any resemblance to acoustic physics.

The thing that puzzles me still is the holes in the two dials. The holes in the inner dial are clearly a detent, but the ring of larger holes doesn't seem a sensible way of making a dial that would just be rotated about as in a circular slide rule. So was something inserted in those holes, or was something visible through the holes?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Calum Galleitch on 15/01/2022 18:16:08:

[…]

So was something inserted in those holes

.

From the previous discussion : The dimensions are ~5.125" X 5.125" X .375".

… so my assumption was … a finger-tip

MichaelG.

.

Ref. post by Charles Dunham :

 https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=171761&p=2

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 15/01/2022 18:45:39

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Yes = I think the larger, blind holes are simply to take a finger-tip or the back end of a pencil, as in the old rotary telephone dials.

The video referred to earlier on shows someone rotating the dial but and manipulating the inner one but that doesn't really help us identify it, I'm afraid. It does show the two rotors are not geared together. Or if they were, it might have been by pins lost long ago. It also shows that at certain points certain holes line up, by revealing the writing-pad under the instrument. Unfortunately the operator had apparently no spotted it, and was turning it too rapidly for me to read it properly.

I've had a reply from the pharmacology historians.

They say it's not to do with medicine – adding that to music and textiles as trades it's not for. They did though suggest something I don't think has been looked at yet, that the instrument is not for working in one system, but for converting between two systems of… what? A measurement system now lost?

'

Start a new dig……

For example, one Vedro of water = 2.7 Imperial Gallons, as does 1 Eimer; but 1 Pood = 3.6 Imp. Gall.; and the Russian Fathom = 7 feet.

(I kid thee not: look in your copy of Fowler's Mechanics' & Machinists' Pocket Book, 1944. Page 30. )

Further rooting established the vedro and pood were Russian; the eimer, Austrian.

My source? I typed those three names and the word "measurement" into the search-bar and as much by luck as intelligent(!) guess, picked on A Manual of Commerce, by William Waterston.

The Google ad (which offers a printed version of this 19C book) opened a table titled General Table of Metrical Equivalents – to Imperial units. Note the adjective does not say or mean "metric". My choice of units was helpfully highlighted.

Only, Waterston gives the Eimer as 12.460 Imp. Gall in Austria, 15.118 Imp Gall in Prussia… While in Russia, 1 Pood was a mass unit = 36.10lbs avoirdupois ("have some peas" ). Ah – that makes sense: 1 Gall weighs 10lbs.

'

Were all these national units undergoing massive revisions even domestically by the 1944 date of Fowler's? It would be logical even without the late-19 and early-20C upheavals across Europe; and Waterston showing for example the Prussians and Rhinelanders had the Morgen (Ger. = "morning"?) for land area, but at 2.63 and 2.10 acres, respectively; while Austria used the Joch (1.42 acres)!

If you scroll up through the bewildering assortment shown in the sample pages, you find metrical evolution occurring in many lands even before the end of the 19C, and the Metric System was already making inroads. France herself invented the metre etc. because, as did other nations, she had suffered a centuries-old trade-by-region measurements conglomerate making even internal commerce increasingly difficult.

France was already metric as we know it, and it's hardly surprising their neighbours especially moved to copy post-Revolutionary France's m,g,l system. Yet she was still though one of several maritime countries using latitude variants of the League whose one length varied by country for nautical distances. For example, her sailors used:

Lea. 1º [divided by] 25. (The standard Nautical Mile now is 1º / 60.)

France also had a "myrametre" = 10km.

At least Britain's engagingly eccentric Imperial units were nation-wide; and the bushel, peck, grain etc were disappearing long before the official move to Metric, now SI, units. Though it lingers: the modern US Gallon was aapparently a 17C Old World, wine-trade version of the Gallon. 

So although this does not really get us much further forwards in identifying our neat little device, it does suggest it was really a units converter for merchants generally; but specific to two nation's national metrical or indeed currency units. Waterston shows currency too, was a complete tangle.

Which countries though?
The table shows an incredible labrynth.

'

Interesting that the decimal fractions above are 9s-based but I am not sure if or how they go with the fractions on our curio's scale. We'd need know, really, how the Eimer, Vedro, Pood etc. or other candidate units were sub-divided or multipled. Nor does it explain the 16-times table, but if this device is to suit a national scale, that might not be Russian or Austrian anyway.

Further ferreting, another book – Encylopedia of Scientific Units, Weights and Measures, Francoise Cardarelli, 2012. The Google review frustratringly omits the Russian page but does give a selection of other countries' ancient measures, in tables showing their sub-divisions and multiples. Intriguingly, very many did use ratios expressed (as indeed does Avoirdupois) in single-integer fractions; and some seem to match some of those on this calculator.

'

So I for one, inspired by the pharmacologists, am turning to thinking this was a units- or currency- converter for general commerce between two countries, not a special design tool.

'

Ref:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2ZUTtLOHd1MC&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=vedro,+eimer,+pood+measurements&source=bl&ots=qntGtNswHe&sig=ACfU3U3KPmH_T-CGdOCwpBLcw1A8fCG4fA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiM7_DKurj1AhUSmVwKHU-XD74Q6AF6BAgeEAM#v=onepage&q=vedro%2C%20eimer%2C%20pood%20measurements&f=false

'

Edited By Nigel Graham 2 on 17/01/2022 11:08:19

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

Relating to Dave's observation posted 15/1 – "The inner ring holes are all dimples, except the video shows one of them, No 30 under the spring clip in the photo, to be a through hole that sometimes aligns with another hole inside".

This thing continues to intrigue me as it does many of you. If you download the video clip and then stick it into an editor, you can both enlarge and step through it. I agree with Dave that one anomoly is the ' 30 ' detent position on the inner wheel which as he says is a through hole unlike all the other dimples. For the first few seconds of the video this hole seems to have a 'blank' under it, grey, same colour as the main body. As it approaches half way this suddenly changes to a distinct line across the middle ( it's in a different orientation to the line notepad underneath ) it seems quite clear and definate i.e. not a scratch. A bit longer on it suddenly goes black ( quite sharp – i.e. its not a shadow ), then returns to the ' line ' then to the grey ' blank '.

So my thoughts are that there are markings on the back plate that are positioned to show as described when there are specific conjunctions between the outer dial and inner one. Like for example the ' line ' is a prior warning indicator during rotations ( nearly there…. ) and the black indication = spot on! Just a wild guess though!

Unfortunately without knowing the logical behind the rotations the guy is doing it's impossible to relate these events to positions of the dials very easily in such a short time. However, I just thought my observations might be of interest.

regards Mike

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

Suddenly thought I could probably do screen grabs to illustrate all my earlier waffling!

[Chuck TaperParticipant @chucktaper]

… and they appear to do so when the 30 & the 0 are in alignment.

Also he detent spring would appear enabled to engage, or lock, both dials at the point of alignment.

It's not clear (to me) if this applies to both 0 points on the outer dial.

Quoting from the original reddit posting "Both rings rotate clockwise freely but lock in this position when rotated counterclockwise." (see Reference earlier in thread)

"…this position…" is a bit ambiguous but I am assuming that it is the home position of the apparatus i.e. 30-0-0

FC

[FarmboyParticipant @farmboy]

Posted by Mike Hurley on 17/01/2022 12:06:34:

Relating to Dave's observation posted 15/1 – "The inner ring holes are all dimples, except the video shows one of them, No 30 under the spring clip in the photo, to be a through hole that sometimes aligns with another hole inside".

This thing continues to intrigue me as it does many of you. If you download the video clip and then stick it into an editor, you can both enlarge and step through it. I agree with Dave that one anomoly is the ' 30 ' detent position on the inner wheel which as he says is a through hole unlike all the other dimples. For the first few seconds of the video this hole seems to have a 'blank' under it, grey, same colour as the main body. As it approaches half way this suddenly changes to a distinct line across the middle ( it's in a different orientation to the line notepad underneath ) it seems quite clear and definate i.e. not a scratch. A bit longer on it suddenly goes black ( quite sharp – i.e. its not a shadow ), then returns to the ' line ' then to the grey ' blank '.

So my thoughts are that there are markings on the back plate that are positioned to show as described when there are specific conjunctions between the outer dial and inner one. Like for example the ' line ' is a prior warning indicator during rotations ( nearly there…. ) and the black indication = spot on! Just a wild guess though!

Unfortunately without knowing the logical behind the rotations the guy is doing it's impossible to relate these events to positions of the dials very easily in such a short time. However, I just thought my observations might be of interest.

regards Mike

I thought perhaps the line observed through the hole at 30 might be caused by a pin inserted and scratching the surface before it drops into the corresponding hole below.

I feel there must be something missing, even if only a pin. The single hole close to the centre of the inner disc must also have a purpose, possibly associated with whatever is missing.

All three scales must be read in combination somehow.

P.S. The clockwise only rotation suggests some kind of progressive calculation rather than a simple conversion.

Mike.

Edited By Farmboy on 17/01/2022 15:34:09

[CalumParticipant @calumgalleitch87969]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 17/01/2022 10:47:56:

Yes = I think the larger, blind holes are simply to take a finger-tip or the back end of a pencil, as in the old rotary telephone dials.

They certainly look like it, but I am still a bit sceptical – how many other circular slide rules of any function have this type of design? It's quite a lot of effort to go to to stamp and deburr twenty holes on a disc that could have been flat and turned with a finger. Rotary telephone dials required a positive stop and a bit of effort to turn, so the through hole design made sense.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Calum Galleitch on 17/01/2022 15:24:11:

.

[…] It's quite a lot of effort to go to to stamp and deburr twenty holes on a disc that could have been flat and turned with a finger. […]

.

True, but : We don’t know the purpose, or the original price, of the device …

In some markets, a dash of “perceived value” can work wonders

MichaelG.

[Author]

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