Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

It's worth mentioning that this is doing long division via repeated subtraction completely mechanically, just using the electric motor to power the gears. If you watch closely you can see it detect underflows, increment, and then shift right to the next digit.

Success! A little cleaning and lubrication freed up the stuck registers enough to do long division. Here's the Marchant Silent Speed approximating Pi. #antique #calculator

The Marchant Silent Speed ⁨#antique⁩ ⁨#calculator⁩ restoration begins! Here's hoping this is as far as I have to take it apart today.

@EdS I relied on John Wolff's documentation when I was attempting to repair a previous Silent Speed. Incredibly complex machines. The official service manual just had drawings and it was handy to see high-quality pictures of the mechanisms.

Anyone interested in mechanical engineering should definitely check out the *analog* carry mechanism in these Marchant calculators that relies on planetary gears. These Marchants are arguably the high water mark for electromechanical calculator engineering.

Check out the latest addition to my ⁨#antique⁩ ⁨#calculator⁩ collection! This is a Marchant "Silent Speed" 8D from 1940, a fast electromechanical analog calculator that can even infinite loop if you divide by zero. I'll be refurbishing it this weekend to make it fully functional.

@hehemrin While a lot of it is custom and expensive work, the demand is high enough you are starting to see aftermarket kits for popular vehicles. For instance this company has a series of kits for vintage porsche and VW models: https://www.evwest.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=40

@hehemrin @purism This is why you need a combination of that and regulation. Consumer demand in other industries that do have options would show there's a market (privacy can be profitable), and regulation can provide limits in areas where there isn't alternatives (data collection becomes less profitable).

@railmeat@mastodon.technology I think it takes a combination of consumer demand (voting with their dollar for products that do respect privacy) and regulation (making it unlawful to collect and sell all this data).

I'm glad that articles like this by Tatum Hunter that walk you through how to opt out of cellular carrier tracking exist, but I'm sad they are necessary. This is exactly why we created the AweSIM service. #privacy https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/01/cell-carrier-privacy-settings/

I did many #Librem5 convergence demos with my #Nexdock360 at #scale19x. It's so fun to watch the moment when people *get* convergence after seeing me drag a known Linux desktop app between screens and have it morph based on screen size.

I wrote about the "smartphoneification" of cars last year on the @purism blog: #privacy https://puri.sm/posts/locked-in-a-remote-control-car/

If you wanted to know why I'm thankful I don't need to replace my car, and if I did, it wouldn't be with a modern one, here's why: #privacy #bigdata https://themarkup.org/the-breakdown/2022/07/27/who-is-collecting-data-from-your-car

This has the side-effect of reminding me how to use each of these calculators, as they all have different methods to perform basic arithmetic, none of which are intuitive.

#Antique #calculators typically degrade through lack of use. Oil/grease gets stiff, dust/dirt takes over. My solution is repeat the simple calculations I usually perform in my head or on my computer on one (or more) of my calculators to exercise them.

@penguin42 Yes I believe there is a stream of each room on the scale youtube channel. When they slice each talk out of the daylong stream I will post a link.

Who would have thought that a thermal exhaust port could be so risky?