Even if you couldn’t care less about adding devices, you can still appreciate the mechanical complexity and beauty of one of these handheld Curta calculators. It adds, subtracts, multiplies, divides, and can even do roots and some other operations with some tricky handling. It’s like having a Babbage difference engine in your hand! Don’t think about taking this on a plane, or if you’re in Boston, in public at all since it bears a slight resemblance to some sort of explosive device. But you better have some serious dough to get one of these bad boys. They are on ebay for upwards of $500. A little pricey when I can do the same thing with my cell phone. But then again, my cell phone doesn’t have a hand crank. Sweet! Google Curta to find out how they work…
