Great video! The "triple zero" key would be common on Olivetti adding machines because of our Italian Lira, which had plenty of zero because of the nature of being kind of an inflated currency. An example: a Fiat 500 in 1972 costed 660000 Lire!
Oooh, now that's a very good comparison, I do love both of those - never seen a Divisumma in the flesh but I have had a ride in a DS a few times, totally amazing cars. I was looking for a Divisumma when I got this Multisumma, so for now I'm happy enough with what I've got.
Lovely machine. I'm yet to tackle an Olivetti, but sadly I don't think the ones I have do automatic multiplication. Many adding machines will disable the (sub)total key after a number is entered, so the problem at 2:30 would not occur. I'm a little surprised this one didn't do that.
Cheers Jaap, I was looking for a Divisumma when I got this machine, but none came up at an affordable price - as it happens I'm quite glad I ended up with the Multisumma because it seems to be less covered as far as RU-vid videos go, and also I just love the styling. I first came across the "2+1=2" on the first adding machine I used, which was an early Olympia electronic adding machine and I thought "ooh, that's odd!!!". I haven't tried all the adding machines we have to see how many lockout the (sub)total key after a number is entered. The Olivetti Prima 20 seems to work the same way as the Multisumma - I guess it wasn't much of a problem once you were used to the machine, but a lockout is a pretty good idea.
@@GrumpyTim Funny you mention Olympia, as I'm working on the Olympia AE8 right now. A pretty boring machine really. As for electronic machines, I have an Anita 811 pocket calculator which came out before standards had become settled, so it also still uses the adding machine syntax. It takes a bit of getting used to.
Looking forward to seeing that Olympia AE8 - they're always a little bit different, so always interesting to see. My brother has an old electronic calculator (might be a Sharp), if I remember correctly it doesn't have a floating point and it's kind of weird to use - I'll have to borrow that one day.
A fun fact about moltiplication: more sofisticated Olivetti machines, like the Divisumma 24, had an "acceleration" feature for the moltiplication. For exaple if you had to multiply something by 8 instead of adding it 8 times, which would require 8 cycles, it uses just 3 cycles; my guess, and I think it's a good guess, is that the machine multiplies the number by 10 (which by shifting one decimal place requires just one cycle) and then subtracts it two times (2 cycles) doing x*10-x*2 instead of x*8
Coo that's neat Markxyz, I knew people used to do that on the manual pinwheel machines to save time - I'd like to see the mechanism that selects whether to add 2,3,4 or 5 times or to shift into the next column, add once then shift back and subtract the appropriate number of times - it's probably a really simple mechanism, I just can't think how they'd do it off the top of my head.
@@GrumpyTim for sure Natale Capellaro, the man who design those machine's internals, had some tricks, it is even more impressive considering he wasn't even an engineer, he just graduated from primary school and started working at Olivetti when he was 14 first in the prouction and then ranked up to lead designer
Cheers David, I know what you mean, and it is rather handy to have a fairly powerful computer in your pocket at all times, not to mention a camera/audio recorder/games machine/calendar/alarm clock.....and I think there's another function they perform......ah yes, a phone!!! All that said, there's a bit of a thrill doing your calculations on an old electro mechanical beast like the Olivetti - or maybe I'm just weird!!!! Cheers for watching.
@@GrumpyTim Yeah it's crazy to think back at how quickly tech has evolved since growing up through the 80's and 90's. My 9 year old thinks I'm weird when I tell him I didn't have a mobile phone until I was about 20 and that I was at college before the internet was really a thing 😂
The first computer I used was an Ohio Scientific Challenger 1P, long before the internet was a thing, and apart from learning about computers, it didn't do that much. Kind of cool all the same.....
I knew what most of the functions were before I started, but I did find a manual online somewhere, and with the help of Google translate I then knew what the last bits should do - kind of handy when you're fixing the machine because it's not always obvious that a part is still sticking if you don't know what it should be doing in the first place.
Hi Mike, yeah, I collect early electronic ones too, not the super desirable nixie tube ones, they're a bit too rich for me, but I'm particularly fond of the early electronic printing calculators. If you click on my channel name you should find a few that I've shown recently.
Oh yes, definitely only worth it if you want to geek out for a bit, and I guess it wasn't really what these adding machines were designed for, but fun all the same!!!
