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Here's a list of some sites which specialize in old calculators and related technology. Please visit these pages to learn more about the world of calculating machines from the past. Click on a link to visit any of the sites. Please notify museum staff (by clicking HERE) if any of the links do not work. Ditto if you know of any other sites which should be added to the list. Sites are listed in no particular order or preference.
Mark
Glusker's "Mechanical Calculation" site
Mark has put together
a very nice site that focuses on later model electro-mechanical calculators.
He has an impressive collection of wonderful machines from Friden, Monroe,
Marchant, Olivetti, and others. He also as a great section on his amazing
development of a re-creation of Thomas Fowler's ternary (Base 3) calculating
machine of 1840.
"Funky Goods" Calculator Museum
A nice collection
of various electronic calculators from the time period of 1966 to 1974.
Site is in Japanese. Homepage translates well into other languages
with Google Translate, but unfortunately, at least as far as I can find,
the individual calculator pages do not seem to translate properly. Detailed
nice-quality photos of calculators inside and out.
Virtual Museum of Calculators (Virtuális számológép-múzeum)
A stunningly well
crafted, beautifully photographed, and very informative site about calculating
instruments, located in Hungary. Site is in Hungarian, but also presented
in English. Link goes to English version of the site. A large collection
(over 300) of electronic calculators, including some fascinating early
Hungarian-made calculators, including Hungary's first electronic calculator,
the
Hunor 131,
and the Intel 4040 microprocessor-based Hunor 301 Programmable Scientific
desktop calculator. Also has great exhibits on slide rules made in Hungary.
Robert Lacoste's "Calculatrices" site
French collector
Robert Lacoste has an impressive collection of calculators dating from the
1920's through 2010. Great photography of the calculators. Site is in French.
John Wolff's Calculating Machines Web Museum
A very fine site,
put together by Australian collector John Wolff, that documents many
aspects of calculating machine technology, from
slide rules to electronic calculators. High quality photography
and extremely well-written exhibits. Of special note is an extremely
detailed account of the workings of an electro-mechanical work of art,
the Madas 20ATG.
A Collection of Mechanical Calculators
A nicely
presented site that presents a collection of mechanical and electromechanical
calculators from "Before the Electronic Age".
Katie Wasserman's Calculator Manual Repository
A great and continually growing
collection of PDF scans of entire calculator user's manuals.
Daniel Sancho's Virtual Museum on the Evolution of Calculating Machines
A very nicely prepared
site, with wonderful documentation on the history of calculating machines,
including early mechanical and electro-mechanical adders and calculators,
early electronic calculators, and later evolution of calculators and
computers. Site is mostly in Spanish, but, for those who are not literate
in Spanish (such as myself), Google's web page translator clearly shows
the quality of Daniel's research.
Brent Hilpert's EEC - Early Electronic Calculator Technology Reference
A wonderful
site with lots of detailed data on a variety of old electronic
calculators as well as obsolete integrated circuits that
are used as the guts for calculators from the late 1960's and early 1970's.
Laura & Michael Greenfield's Vintage Technology Museum
Vintage technology
through the years. A wonderfully-designed site, with a time-machine
theme. Includes calculating machines, along with radios, television,
lab equipment...you name it, it's probably there.
Joerg Woerner's Datamath Calculator Museum
A site specializing
in exhibition and documentation of classic Texas Instruments calculators, along
with those that use Texas Instruments IC's as their brains.
Nigel Tout's Vintage Calculator Web Museum
Award-winning site
of a fellow old calculator collector in the UK who does a great job of
preserving and documenting old calculating machines. Special interest in
machines made in the UK.
Dentaku Museum
A wonderful site
documenting the history of Japanese electronic calculator technology.
Lots of interesting information. Some pages in Japanese only, but most
pages also have english text. Some great photos of early Casio relay
calculators.
Serge Devidts' Calcuseum
A fantastic site put
together by a fellow collector in Belgium. Detailed photos and technical
information on a great many old electronic calculators.
Museo Nazionale degli Strumenti per il Calcolo
An Italian National
Museum devoted to documentation and preservation of calculating instruments,
located near Pisa, Italy.
Francesco Bonomi's Olivetti Programma 101 Information Source
An extremely well
presented collection of information on the Olivetti Programma 101, one of the
earliest all-electronic programmable calculators.
Mike Sebastian's Calculator Technical Information Web Pages
A site specializing
in information on early LSI chipsets used in calculators.
Sergei Frolov's Soviet Digital Electronics Museum
The Soviet Union
had some truly amazing calculator technology. Sergei's site documents
an ever-growing collection of Soviet calculating technology. A definite
must-see.
Gerhard Wenzel's Museum of Pocket Calculating Devices
A comprehensive and
amazing collection of pocket calculators, along with many other calculating
devices. Great photographs.
Rick Furr's Calculator Reference
A site packed with
information on Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard, and Curta calculators.
The definitive source for information on Curta calculators.
David Hicks' Museum of HP Calculators
The definitive web
resource for information on Hewlett Packard calculators. Very high quality web
design, with tons of useful information. Can't recommend this site highly
enough!
Alex Knight's Electronic Calculator History and Technology E-Museum
A fellow collector
from the East Coast of the US who shares the same vision for preservation
and documentation of old electronic calculators as I. Lots of great
articles and photos of early calculator technology. Gotta love
those early Mathatron calculators in his museum. Check it out!
Dan Veeneman's "Decode Systems" Calculator Collection Site
An informative and nicely produced site featuring Mr. Veeneman's great
calculator collection.
Listed here are links related to vintage office technology.
Early Office Museum
A museum devoted to
documenting and preserving all equipment used in offices. Great exhibits
on things like fastening technology, copying technology, and even
great detail on pencil sharpeners!
Yesterday's Office
A beautifully
crafted site specializing in anything realting of vintage office equipment,
including typewriters, duplicating machines, cash registers, adding
machines and calculators. Features articles on various museum sites
around the world.
Here are some links to sites relating to the technology used in old calculators.
Mike's Electric Stuff
Check out the page on Nixie Tubes, Counter Tubes, and Selector
tubes. Great stuff!
These are some of my favorite computing history websites
IPSJ Computer Museum
A fantstic resource on the history of electronic computers in Japan.
Computer History Museum
The largest museum in the US devoted to the history of computing. The physical museum is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, Mountain View, California. While the physical museum is currently closed (as of December, 2021) due to COVID-19, the online presence is rich with a lot of great information, photos,
and videos.
Living Computer Museum+Labs [RIP]
This wonderful museum was founded by the co-founder of Microsoft, Mr. Paul
Allen[1/21/1953-10/15/2018], out of his deep interest in the development of computer technology,
and how that technology changed our world.
For many years, Mr. Allen would acquire cast-aside old computers and
stored them away for the future.
In 2012,
the Living Computer Museum located in Seattle, WA, opened its doors the
public to show a number of Mr. Allen's old computers in a unique way.
Unlike many other museums, the computers were set up and running so that
visitors could actually experience them! Other museums have old computers
roped off or behind glass, with signs that say "DO NOT TOUCH". Not so at
the Living Computer Museum.
The museum also had a great many very knowledgable and skilled folks that were
employees of the museum, hired to to do computer restoration and
maintenance, as well as a great staff of volunteers who helped with everything
from exhibit creation to janitorial duties. There was also a tremendous group
of young people who were on internships that would serve as guides to take
people on curated tours of the museum, as well as providing answers to any
questions that anyone had, and if they didn't have the answer, finding one
of the professionals who did.
An example of the truly amazing capabilities of the engineers that worked
at the Living Computer Museum + Labs was the stunning restoration of a
Control Data 6500 supercomputer dating from 1967 that required thousands
of man-hours to restore. This computer had very specialized cables with
one-of-a-kind connectors on them that connected the multiple sections
of the computer together. When the machine was decommissioned from its
original purpose, the cables were cut to enable getting the machine out
of the datacenter it was located in. Among the huge challenges involved
in getting the computer running again was literally remanufacturing these
cables from scratch.
Tragically, the museum was closed and all operations suspended on
March 5, 2020, due to the COVID-19 crisis. It is not known if the museum
will ever re-open, but the website is still online and has a lot of good
information about some of the amazing computers that the museum had on exhibit.
If you ever visited the museum and want to see the collection at least remain
maintained and intact, and better yet, would want the museum to re-open
to the public when COVID conditions would allow it, please write to the
Living Computer Museum + Labs
and strongly express your desire to avoid this amazing collection and museum
fading from memory and being lost to time.
Here are some retro-computing sites of interest.
Wang2200.org
Jim Battle has
developed a fantastic site dedicated to Wang's early 2200-series of
computers that had the BASIC computer language built-in. The
2200-series computers were an outgrowth of Wang's high-end calculator designs.
Beautifully-designed site, extremely well-written, and loaded with great
historical and technical details. Also features a Wang 2200 emulator
that runs under Windows or iOS that executes the actual Wang 2200
microcode captured from an early Wang 2200 computer!
The Small Wang Museum
A wonderful
museum devoted to the machines of Wang Laboratories, put together by
Jan Van de Veen of the Netherlands. Jan has a very highly-optioned
Wang 720C calculator system, as well as a great selection of early Wang
computer equipment.