We all buy LED light bulbs these days (remember the days of CFL and tungsten filament bulbs?). And we buy them in little cardboard boxes made from dead trees. You have skinny single-bulb boxes, and you have twice as wide two-packs. So imagine my surprise when I saw the in-between box at the left in … 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
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
One of the strangest slide rules in my collection, this ingenious Italian device from the 1950s allows you to factorize numbers into their prime factors in an instant. Just move the “Bull’s eye” cursor to the number you wish to examine and the crisscrossing lines and symbols line up to give you the answer. Check … Read more
This is Jaen-Antoine Lafay’s Hélice a Calcul, a rather unusual logarithmic slide rule. But Lafay himself, its inventor, was just as unusual, not to say quirky… a fascinating lone innovator waging war on an indifferent world. To illustrate, here is a section from Lafay’s marketing brochure: Oh, routine! What wrong do you not do, firstly … Read more
In the days before GPS, Google Maps and Waze, people used maps; and to figure how long it would take to get from A to B on a map, you could make excellent use of a Marsch-Zirkel, or march compasses… like the lovely device described in this new article on my History of Computing exhibition. … Read more
New on my Possibly Interesting web site: Cloning a Vibroplex bug, where I describe the venerable Vibroplex semi-automatic telegraph key – and the improvised clone I made as a young radio amateur. Enjoy!
Here is a bit of outstandingly smart design I saw in Terminal Five at London Heathrow airport. To fully appreciate the ingenuity, you should know that there are two security inspection areas (you know, where they check your shoes and X-Ray your hand luggage): Security North and Security South. Both serve the same function, and … Read more
My father, God rest his soul, was a young physics student when Israel’s war of independence broke out, and he was among the defenders of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City. When the quarter fell to the superior forces of the Jordanian Legion, he was taken prisoner and spent 9 months in a POW … Read more
Here is an item I saw on the wonderful Nostalgia Online site. They have a large collection of vintage kitchen utensils, most of which I do recall from my childhood, and many of which I run into as I rummage in flea markets in search of computing history items. However, this one I’ve never seen … Read more
