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02/17/2005 Entry: "Russian Rechner"

The German slang term for abacus is russicher Rechner. Russian Calculator. Of course, the abacus is not solely a product of Russia. They were present in ancient South America, and were also found in Greece and China. I've never personally seen an adept, but my math teachers in elementary and middle school oft told of Japanese excange students they encountered in their own studies who had--and usually mastered with blurring speed--such devices.

The concept is simple enough: each column represents a digit--units, tens, ones, etc. On each column is a row of four or five units representing one, and a second row of one or two beads representing five, depending. Except for South American models, which I believe, were base 12.

Years ago, I endevoured to build one. It was a wobbly shoddy thing, but addition and subtraction were easy enough, albeit squirrelly, kind of like when you play drums but the spurs on the hihat and kick refuse to grab the carpet: hard to stay in the pocket. I never got the hang of multiplication or division though.

But I digress. Where was I? Right. Russian calculators. Below is a neat little online museum of Soviet-era calculators and slide rules. Alas, no abacii dabei, but still fascinating nonetheless.

Soviet Calculators

The slide rule is unto itself a fascinating item. I never learned how to use one, but I'm sure my dad did. Why, you've got your logarithms right there at your fingertips. The slide rule is to computers what the harmonica is to the mighty pipe organ: you can bend notes. The slide rule is an analog computer.

The analog computer. What a weird mystical concept. It's like a hexagram in a latter-day I-Ching. Like gears vs relays. Like paper rock scissor where water beats all three given enough time.

I don't know of any recent developments in this field outside of conceptual mechanized art: the digesting machine or the one with those many down-differential gears that are used to turn a massive stone block around in a thousand years by way of a tiny hobby DC motor.

But you can find one interesting example. I believe it is housed in the British Museum and was designed by a plumber-turned-economics student long ago. Asthetically not much to look at, just some tanks and hoses. It runs on water. It was built to demonstrate certain economic ebbs and flows, but it can't handle inflation, if you get my drift.