Mechanical calculator trying to divide by zero

[Jon]

Mechanical calculator tries to divide by zero, in GIF and short video.


https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...ng_by_zero.gif

We don't know exactly why this is happening with this specific Facit ESA-01 mechanical calculator, but it might have to do with how some mechanical calculators use subtraction to perform division. Like this:

20 ÷ 4 = ?

1. 20 - 4 = 16
2. 16 - 4 = 12
3. 12 - 4 = 8
4. 8 - 4 = 4
5. 4 - 4 = 0

5 steps are used to get to zero above. Thus, 20 ÷ 4 = 5. So here's the problem when using subtraction when dividing by 0:

20 ÷ 0 = ?

1. 20 - 0 = 20
2. 20 - 0 = 20
3. 20 - 0 = 20
4. 20 - 0 = 20
5. 20 - 0 = 20
6. 20 - 0 = 20
7. 20 - 0 = 20

etc...