Mechanical calculator with cover removed - photo

[Duke_of_URL]

I remember the huge metal beast calculators in my Dad's company when I was growing up. It was all they had at the time, and they were frequently being sent to the Office Machine Repair place down the street for a "refurb." One day, while I was at a friend's house, his dad, who sold products for a Japanese manufacturer, asked if we wanted to see something brand new and "revolutionary," which turned out to be a fully electronic, desktop calculator about the size of a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. He plopped it down, with it's cool Nixie Tube display, and started running through additions, multiplications, and divisions. He would even do a divide by zero, whence it would flash 8's or E's. He went on to explain asymptotic behavior to us 6th graders by asking us what 12 divided by 12 was, then divided by 6, then 4, and 3, 2, 1. He then asked us if we noticed the answers were getting larger and larger? Next he asked what it would be when we divided by zero, which he did, saying it was so large that it is, "infinite." Wow, I'd just gotten a math lesson that made sense! I look back on that event fondly, even though the persons' names have escaped me. As for me, I'd go on to earn my BS and MS in Engineering with a strong emphasis in Electronics and Mathematics. Perhaps that friend's dad that day had lit a fire?