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Links to other Calculator Sites

Links to other calculator related sites on the Web

If you have other calculator, calculating device, early electronics, or history-of-computer related links you think should be here, please contact us.  We also invite readers whose personal web pages have calculators or calculator themes to be added. Just drop us a line with the site address.

If you have a site listed and you feel I should modify the listing or address, please let me know.  (Please write up a one line description of your site for me to include.)  I will be happy to modify this list.

Please note that site addresses can change.  If a link does not work try searching for the site with a search engine, such as Google., or see if the website has been archived on the Wayback Machine.

To translate a site into another language try running it through the Google automatic translator at https://translate.google.co.uk/?hl=en&tab=wT.  Although not perfect it does allow much of the information on that site to be understood.

For those fluent in German several articles in this site have been translated, as listed below.

 

In no particular order, here are some great calculator websites !

• A site associated with this one which gives details about the Bell Punch Company, its mechanical calculators and the fascinating story of the development of the Anita electronic calculator, the world's first electronic desktop calculator, and subsequent developments is Bell Punch Company and the Anita Calculator.

 

• Rick Bensene's Old Calculators Web Museum has very comprehensive reviews of a vast number of mainly vintage desk calculators, with many photographs.

 

• Serge Devidt's CALCMUSEUM has a vast amount of information about vintage electronic calculators.

 

• The Virtual Museum of Calculators has excellent photographs of, and information about, vintage hand-held electronic and mechanical calculators, and slide-rules.

 

• Katie Wassermann has a growing list of manuals for electronic calculators, which are downloadable in pdf format, at http://www.wass.net/manuals/.

 

• Valéry Monnier has worked for the French Association ANCMECA and began to create a database of historical digital books and documents for Typewriters and Calculators. This very valuable resource can be found at https://www.zotero.org/ancmeca/items.

 

• Valéry Monnier has his own two very interesting websites with many excellent photographs and diagrams. www.arithmometre.org is devoted to the pioneering Thomas de Colmar mechanical arithmometers and www.ami19.org has a great deal of information about Arithmetical Machines and Instruments of the 19th century.

 

• The Smithsonian Institution has a collection of early desktop electronic calculators which are shown and described at https://www.si.edu/spotlight/desk-calc/vacuum-tubes-to-transistors-from-the-anita-mark-viii-to-hewlett-packard-and-wang and https://www.si.edu/spotlight/desk-calc/desktop-calculators-with-chips.

 

• The eBay auction websites always have many vintage calculators to bid on. Go to www.ebay.com and search on "calculator". You can also try the eBay sites in other countries, or choose "any country" on the Advanced Search page.

 

• Bletchley Park, at Bletchey, 35 miles north of London, England, has a website at http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk. It has exhibits of WWII coding machines & code-breaking machines, old computers and military communications. A highlight is the reconstructed Colossus code-breaking computer of the 1940s.
  The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park has mechanical and early electronic calculators on display, and also early personal computers powered up which can be operated by visitors. It has its own website at http://www.tnmoc.org/.

 

• Herbert Schneemann and Walter Szrek have a site with a lot of interesting photographs and very useful, and hard to find, information about mechanical calculators, at http://www.rechenmaschinen-illustrated.com/.

 

• For information about Curta calculators and links to yet more information visit "Curta.Org: Your Complete Curta Calculator Site".

 

• For those who would like to learn more about Curt Herzstark, who designed the Curta, the Charles Babbage Institute offers an oral history transcript with an interview of Mr. Herzstark. For more information, go to http://purl.umn.edu/107358.

 

• For much more information about Curta calculators visit "The Curta Calculator Page".

 

• If you do not own a Curta calculator then you can experience one by using the Curta Simulator 'YACS - Yet Another Curta Simulator' authored by Olaf Veenstra.  It takes a little time to start up but it is worthwhile since this incredible simulation also allows you to view the internal workings of the Curta.

 

• The Museum of HP Calculators at http://www.hpmuseum.org/ - David Hicks has gathered together technical details and superb photographs of vintage Hewlett-Packard calculators.  The history of calculators section is also excellent with simple descriptions of the operation of mechanical calculator mechanisms.

 

• Max Stone has a blog which has a lot of interesting information that he has discovered about Hewlett-Packard calculators.

 

• John Wolff's Web Museum features calculating machines and mechanical music.
  Check out the "Calculator Technical and Reference Section at http://www.johnwolff.id.au/calculators/Tech/TechIndex.htm.  Of special interest are the sections showing detailed technical information on models of mechanical calculators.  These illustrate the awesome array of precision components required in this sort of calculator.

 

• Mike Harrison's "Display and Counting Tubes" pages at http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/count.html have details of display tubes, many of which are used in calculators.

 

• Christofer Nöring's Comptometer page at his site archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20200215144501/http://w1.131.telia.com/~u13101111/comp.html. - There are also pages on other calculators.

 

• The late Brooke W. Boering ("Vagabondo") has a site which provides an excellent source of information on Felt & Tarrant Comptometers.

 

• An excellent site with the history of Odhner mechanical calculators is no longer active, but the archive of the site can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/20071102172712/http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wtodhner/calcs.html.

 

• Timo Leipälä has researched an important document "The life and works of W. T. Odhner", which is available in two parts: part 1 and part 2.

 

• James Redin's extensive site at http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/ has sections on different types of calculators. Click on "Vintage Calcs" on the menu on the left to get started.

 

• Sergei Frolov's Soviet Calculator Collection is at http://www.leningrad.su/museum/. Sergei has also written a great article on the history of Soviet Calculators which is at James Redin's site.

 

• Gregory Escov's site about Soviet programmable calculators.

 

• See also Kenton Green's landmark article on the History of Soviet calculators.

 

• Dejan Ristanovic's site at www.ti59.com enthuses over the Texas Instruments TI-59 programmable calcuator and tells you everything that you never knew about it.

 

• Viktor Toth's site has a lot of information about Programmable Calculators, including the TI-59.

 

• "The Web's biggest Sinclair-related archive" "Planet Sinclair" site at http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/

 

• Richard Torrens has produced the website Sinclair Radionics: an Inside View 1964 - 1975 with details of his time with Clive Sinclair from 1964-1975. Although mainly concerned with Sinclair audio equipment this site gives an extremely interesting insight into one of the most innovative electronics companies of the time, and is thoroughly recommended.

 

• Andy Morten has a site with information about "Vintage Sinclair products from the 1970s and 1980s" including calculators at http://www.vintagesinclair.co.uk/

 

• Joerg Woerner's site has an incredible amount of information and photographs on Texas Instruments calculators, and others - www.datamath.org

 

• There is an immense amount of information at the Encyclopaedia of Mechanical Calculators site at http://www.rechnerlexikon.de/wiki.phtml. The site is in German with parallel translations into English, French, and Italian.

 

• Sinichiro Osaki's Pocket Calculator Museum at http://www.dentaku-museum.com/ gives fascinating information about early Japanese electronic calculators and their development, something we collectors/researchers have needed for quite a while. If you click on the "English" button the site is run through an automatic translator which, although not perfect, gets the main information across.

 

• Gerhard Wenzel's Museum of Pocket Calculating Devices.

 

• Brent Hilpert has brilliantly reverse-engineered several early calculators, including the Casio AL-1000 and Facit 1123, and has published detailed information on his Early Electronic Calculator Technology Reference.

 

• Gerald Saudan has a site with information about everything that you would want to know about MADAS mechanical calculators at http://www.madas.ch/.

 

• Pepe Tozzo's "Retrokit" electronic calculator site

 

• Gene Wright's HP/TI site with pictures and lots of programs.

 

• Totalisator History a world's first -- The history of the invention of the worlds first automatic totalisator in 1913 and the company founded in 1917 to manufacture and export totalisator systems which became a monopoly in this field. If mechanical computing existed, this is an example of it on a commercial scale. This is a topic related to mechanical calculators. See the section titled "Mechanical aids to calculation".

 

• "How to Collect LED Pocket Calculatora" by Larry Gilbert.

 

• Craig Finseth's awsome HP Database and various HP links.

 

• Hal Layer's Mind Machine Museum with over 100 artifacts illustrated and identified

 

• American Computer and Robotics Museum

 

• The eBay U.S. auction website at www.ebay.com always has many vintage calculators to bid on. Search on "calculator". You can also try the eBay sites in other countries, or choose "any country" on the Advanced Search page.

 

• Commodore history can be found at https://web.archive.org/web/20030801160335/http://amiga.emugaming.com/commodore.html and http://www.commodore.ca/history/company/early_commodore_history.htm.

 

• Bruce Rogers has calculator photos on his site at http://www.toirm.com/ including HP and TI pics as well as some other pocket types. He has some pretty nice desktop models depicted also.

 

• "The Friden Web Site: The Story of Carl Friden and His Company" by Frank Rauck has lots of interesting details about Karl Friden, the Friden Company, and Friden calculators.

 

• Christoph Lorenz has an interesting new website featuring 1970s calculators and more, at http://www.christophlorenz.de/calc/index.php.

 

• Emil Dudek produced a Vintage Technology site with interesting photographs and information about vintage calculators, and much, much more vintage technology. Sadly, the site has had to be discontinued but it still lives on at the Web Archive where the last version can be viewed at http://web.archive.org/web/20140717111959/http:/www.vintage-technology.info/.

 

• Hans Bloemen (aka "Flowercalc") has a vintage calculators website at www.calculatormuseum.nl. Especially interesting is his summary list of calculator companies and the calculators they produced.

 

• Christopher Kavanau has created the 'MUSEUM OF TRAILING-EDGE TECHNOLOGY' website where you can find a technical investigation of the prototype of the WYLE LABORATORIES WS-01 scientific electronic calculator of 1963, photographs of early IME electronic desktop calculators, photographs of Grace Hopper and the Harvard Mark 1 computer, and press archives for Sumlock/Anita calculators and the Friden 130 calculator.

 

• If you want to see how a Bohn Contex 10 mechanical calculator was repaired, with many photographs and a description of how this 10-key calculator works, see https://www.csparks.com/contex/.

 

• Nathan Zeldes has a website in a very readable "show and tell" style which features some very unusual items, at http://www.nzeldes.com/. See the History of Computing section for calculators and computers.

 

• Guy Ball's Old Calcs site is now amalgamated with this site.
  Guy also has a site dedicated to LED calculator watches and LED watches at http://www.ledwatches.net, where there is lots of information about vintage 1970s LED watches, pictures and links.

 

• Patent Search Page -- Interesting info (& great fun), search for "calculator".

 

• Archive of Vintage Technology Through the Decades

 

• Peter Kernwein has a site with photographs of his mechanical and electronic calculators, and computers, at http://www.peterkernwein.de/.

 

• Noël Jouenne has a site with photographs of his mechanical and electronic calculators at http://perso.orange.fr/noel.jouenne/calculatrices.html.  Especially interesting is the information and photographs of the early electronic calculator made in France by Schneider at http://noel.jouenne.pagesperso-orange.fr/Exa210.html.
  The home page of the calculator section at http://noel.jouenne.pagesperso-orange.fr/calc.html has French advertisements and articles on early electronic calculators.
  Use 'Google translate', if required, to translate from the French.

 

• Giorgio Cicerchia has on his site a section with photographs and details of mechanical and electronic calculators, and vintage technology, at http://web.tiscali.it/cicerchia/.

 

• Gerhard Kreuzer has a Computer Museum section on his site with photographs of some vintage calculators and PDP8 computer at http://www.compuseum.at/portal/.

 

• A very interesting site about Soemtron electronic calculators, which were early electronic desktop models manufactured in the then East Germany (DDR), is at http://www.soemtron.org/index.html

 

• Kees van der Sanden's "My Hewlett Packard calculator collection" has interesting information and documents about Hewlett Packard and other RPN calculators.

 

• There is much interesting and valuable information about mechanical calculators on "Cris' site on antique mechanical four-function calculators" at http://www.crisvandevel.de/index.htm.

 

• Jaap Scherphuis has an interesting website with information about mechanical calculators at http://www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/index.htm.

 

• There is information about Sharp calculators and pocket computers at http://sharppocketcomputers.com/, including downloadable pdf sales brochure for the PC-1211 and a very interesting Service Manual for it.

 

• The Crazy Watches site has an enormous amount of technical information about LED calculator watches (and LED watches) at http://www.crazywatches.pl/led,1.

 

• John Scriven has an interesting website describing the mechanical calculators in his collection at https://mechanicalcalculators.wordpress.com/.  It has a very useful section with operating manuals for a selection of mechanical calculators.

 

• Roland Huisman has a considerable ANITA calculator resource at http://technischmuseum.nl.  There he describes his restoration of an ANITA Mk 8 to working order at http://technischmuseum.nl/devices/Anita%20MK8/Anita%20MK8.html, with much very interesting information about the working of this machine.  Note that this article is in Dutch but can be translated using https://translate.google.com/.
  He has posted a valuable selection of ANITA instruction manuals and advertising brochures, together with other interesting literature, at http://technischmuseum.nl/documentation/documentation%20files/Anita%20PDF/.
• Roland has also uploaded a video to the YouTube site of the ANITA Mk8 operating.  This is very informative since the machine has the cover open and Roland explains what is happening internally.  See the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-qvtiqWens.
• Roland has continued with his YouTube videos with a fascinating demonstration of the internal workings of his restored ANITA Mk12 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKAyLnBjS3Q&feature=youtu.be.  This is recommended viewing to see how this machine which is intermediate between tube and transistor technology worked.

 

• Kees Nagtegall has produced a catalogue showing photographs of dozens of different models 'Addiator' type calculators at https://issuu.com/keesnagtegaal/docs/catalogue-2015-1.3.

 

• Two super sites featuring many Casio calculators, including very rare models:
  'Casio Calculator Collectors' at http://www.casio-calculator.com/.
  'Ledudu's Casio calculators and computers gallery' at http://casio.ledudu.com/pockets.asp?menu=1&lg=eng.

 

• "The Dawn of Personal Electronic Calculators and Computers" is a site with interesting information about a number of 1960s electronic calculators.  Find it at https://dopecc.net/index.html.

 

• As well as information about early computer the 'Time-Line Computer Archive' at https://t-lcarchive.org/ also includes photographs and information about early calculators, especially early electronic models.

 

• Fabrizio Corpetti has a website with information about a wide range of Texas Instruments electronic devices at http://www.facele.eu/, including TI calculators and calculators based on TI chips.

 

• Gary Walton has kindly made available scans of a number of advertising brochures for calculators of the 1970s at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1B61nMTJ8hYbR9Ej6s2VeKP3X-51-ru7E.

 

• Vladimir Esaulov has a 'Computer Museum' site under development which includes photographs and information about mechanical and electronic calculators, and much more, as well as computers at https://kartsci.org/kocomu/.

 

• Greg Maletic has the site "Calculators 1968-1983" which features photographs of vintage electronic calculators in his collection.  He recently put on public display in Portland, Oregon, for a pop-up exhibit "Calculators 1968-1983" showing about 100 calculators from his collection.  There is a YouTube video of Greg introducing the exhibit at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2On8mhPtZ3I.  Added Sep. 2023.

 

 

If you are fluent in the German language then:

• At the following link there is a German translation of the article about the Busicom 141-PF calculator and the Intel 4004 microprocessor.

 

Vintage Calculators

© Text & photographs copyright Nigel Tout   2000-2023  except where noted otherwise.