> My first job as engineer 1963 was in a company which made office machines.
> A
> desk full of relays and 'Strowger selectors' - the same things which they
> used in telephone exchange at that time. People there liked to show the
> 'speed' by entering a little task like 99999 x 999 then go to lunch and
> when
> we returned it was still working on it tak tak tak tak tak tak rrrrrrrrrt
> tak tak tak....
> We developed the new generation machines using core memory and blocking
> oscillators (rather than flip-flops, monoflops) because they worked with
> only one transistor. Transistors were expensive, around 5 to 10 $ a piece.
>
> Lembit

My father's company had electromechanical calculators. They would do
divisions through successive subtractions, counting the required number of
subtractions to get to zero. I once told it to divide something by zero.
After an hour of clunking, I unplugged it and went home. I don't know if
they had to send it in for repair or what...

Harold


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