Museum visits never lack for cool stuff! So here is a sighting from a recent visit to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. These are anthropomorphic sarcophagi (ossuaries) from a chalcolithic burial cave found near Peki’in in the Galilee. Made of painted clay, they are dated to 5,500-6,500 years ago. Clearly functional as containers for bones, … Read more
The humble clothespin is a ubiquitous item that has been with us for generations; and it is simple enough that you’d think it’s reached the point if utmost reliability. And yet, it seems that it is in fact very unreliable: clothespins break, they fall apart, they need constant replenishing… but I seemed to remember that … Read more
Here is one impressive calculating device: Washington Sabatini’s reinforced concrete calculator. This complicated circular slide rule is one of the largest items in my collection. It comprises ten concentric aluminum rings covered with complicated scales and pointers. The rings are all movable except for the second largest; that one is fixed to the body of … Read more
The photographic camera is one of the great inventions of the 19th century, and is quite a simple idea: take a light sensitive surface, put a lens in front of it, add the ability to control exposure time and aperture, and you’re all set. And for more than a century, that’s what cameras were all … Read more
The Tavernier-Gravet company was France’s premier scientific instrument maker at the end of the 19th century, and it stayed abreast of the latest developments in slide rule design and production when it entered the 20th century. In this this new article on my History-of–Computing site I illustrate some of their problems and solutions as they … Read more
When my kids were at school they were taught addition with colored wooden rods. Well, a century earlier two innovative Frenchmen – Henri Genaille and Edouard Lucas – invented a system that does rapid multiplication and division using much more sophisticated rods, and I have in my collection a box of these ingenious calculation aids. … Read more
So what do you do if you want to give a computer to every child, and the computers of your day are made of expensive boxwood? Why, you invent a cheap slide rule made of Glass! Leon Lalanne did, in 1851. Read all about it here!
The Gerber Variable Scale, described here, is a thing of beauty and elegance, admirable for its ingenuity and craftsmanship. It is also a “one of a kind” device, or so I thought until my unexpected sighting on eBay of the “Proportional Rule” made by the Data Scaler corporation of Westfield, Massachusetts. This device is a … Read more
The circular slide rule developed around 1920 by Jules Arnault and Louis Paineau comes in a wooden frame, to give it durability and ease of use; but it is so pretty you can – and I did – hang it on your wall! Aside from being pretty, this is an ingeniously designed and very well-made … Read more
