Classiest adding machine ever (1922)

The Burroughs Class 3 "Pike style" adding machine, from 1922.
This is episode 10 of my video series about calculating devices.
End song inspired by "Hotter Than a Molotov" by The Coup.
Chris Staecker webarea: faculty.fairfield.edu/cstaecker/

[@xandr96]

"You can still hear the gold standard" that's amazing

[@johneygd]

I start to get really annoyed by his smart jokes after a while when watching his videos ,it just getting on my nerves.

[@tajmahalfred]

This was easily in my top 5 toys when I was a little kid. This explains many things about my later life, including why I'm watching adding machine videos alone on a Saturday night. But no, my dad had one in his office that had been in the family for 50+ years by that point, and I'd stand on a chair and bang away at it and create what little kid me called "tickets." I must have been responsible for at least 10% of the Burroughs adding machine usage in the early and mid eighties.

[@Damremont18]

When I joined the Bank of Montreal in 1975, these machines were still being used. Desks already had desk calculators so these were used in the morning to balance the clearing. The tellers would also use them when they were balancing their cash. Same keyboard, but the machines were electric. They were slower than a ten key calculator, but you could still attain a fairly good speed on these machine. There were a couple of these old crank machines tucked away in the corner. Some people preferred this type of machine to the newer desk top 10 keys. Do a video on a ledger posting machine if there is an actual machine still in existence. They were lots of fun (not really).

[@WJCTechyman]

From a company that would later develop a computer system for the Ministry of Education for the Government of the Province of Ontario, Canada. This was probably around the time Burroughs merged with that other business machine company to become Unisys as some of those computers looked similar in design to Apple's iMac computers 15-20 years later in the late 1990s. The ones that had the Burroughs brand looked like big, robust versions of the Commodore PET.

[@BartholomewHunt87]

My grandmother used this machine to calculate interest rates on savings accounts at Northwest Bank back in 1939. I appreciate the video

[@shafransky93]

I restored one of these a few years back. It's an amazing machine!

[@Cashvertising]

Fabulous video. Great script. Highly informative and entertaining. Thank you!

[@OldManBOMBIN]

KURT RUSSELL WAS THE COMPUTER THAT WORE TENNIS SHOES? I used to LOVE that movie.

[@nikoligogle3153]

Underrrated channel for sure!

[@randyscott3386]

No old business is complete without one sitting on the counter somewhere . Usually next to an old black telephone with a dial on it .

[@tashibalampkin8555]

This was very interesting. Thank you for the video.

[@RatKindler]

How can three people not like this video? It's excellent!

[@formerunsecretarygeneralba9536]

Laziness

[@AtelierDBurgoyne]

Thanks for your great videos. Of all the old big adding, listing and calculating machines, I find the Dalton 10 key to be the most obscure. It had an early patent tjat included a typewriter keyboard, maybe for typing on invoices and calculating the total?

[@someonespadre]

When a solar EMP strikes we antique machine owners will be ready! The President will personally call Staecker and hat in hand ask for help in meeting the Nation’s calculating needs!

[@ATerminalJunkie]

I work for unisys and maintain their servers. They buy ibm servers and reconfigure them and even put new serial numbers on them, so in essence they still follow the Burroughs business model to some degree.

[@brandonkeffer5752]

I have one in front of me right now. Thank you for the great information. Very, VERY helpful.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Nice- first ever KZbin comment posted using a Burroughs Class 3!

[@brandonkeffer5752]

@@ChrisStaecker lol took a while. The ink ribbon jammed at first. xD

[@marmaly]

Just picked up one of these in an auction for CDN$ 7.00! Perfect working condition. Just polishing it up a bit. It's a 1920 model and does not have the "non-add" button. Instead, the 'repeat" button in in its place and there isn't a button on the upper right. Thanks for the video!

[@TommyBeckerAndStuff]

That was excellent

[@donaldboscoe150]

Jankin' the Crank!

[@MattMcIrvin]

The founder of Burroughs was named William S. Burroughs, and he was the grandfather of *that* William S. Burroughs (who started out using a pseudonym, maybe because he didn't want to be primarily known as the brat of the rich and famous Burroughs family, but I guess it didn't stick).

[@JRL3001]

I just picked one of these up today! It's really a joy to use, but wow its *massive* Thank you for the awesome video!

[@jenniferparsons8378]

how does one reverse the ink ribbon. I am unable to locate the button if it exists.

[@JRL3001]

@@jenniferparsons8378 good question! I don't think there is a ribbon reverse. I'll hunt down the instructions and find out. Mines in desperate need for a new ribbon

[@JRL3001]

Ok checked the manual. No switch. Looks like it needs tbe manually wound back

[@nickdigrispino2409]

Have my great grandpa’s 1932 Burroughs

[@donaldlampert331]

I am now the proud owner of a Class 3 machine, what a cool thing! Thanks for the vid! Jenking the crank......cool

[@ChrisStaecker]

welcome to the good life!

[@jenniferparsons8378]

How does one reverse the ink ribbon direction. Tax season!

[@nathanpratt3058]

I bet it was really hard to get the engineers to actually do their job when taking over companies

[@Luschan]

Imagine watching someone fast with years of experience working one of these suckers. Just pounding away and yanking that crank. Offices must have been loud with a team of workers using adding machines.

[@jbintali9490]

watching this because my Grandma told me she used to used this and to look it up.

[@TheFullmetalj]

Please do a vdo on Burrough tall , 3 bevelled glass sides , it is the most iconic in my opinion

[@ChrisStaecker]

I'd love to do one of those- but they're expensive! I don't spend more than about $40 to get one of these machines. You got one I can borrow?

[@bobcohoon9615]

I just had one given to me and I put it on a bathroom scale . It read 45 pounds , and it feels like that when lifting it

[@rdramser]

Jankin’ the Crank 😂

[@haramanggapuja]

Lest we forget, the late junkie author, William S. Burroughs, Jr.'s collected essays appear in the book "Adding Machine." talk about being zapped.

[@ChrisStaecker]

This dude was his grandfather- true story!

[@calvinyoder633]

Can you please share how to replace the paper on these? I just bought one and it's working well but the paper tore and can't figure out how to thread it back in

[@ct92404]

lol "jenking the crank" I have to find a way to use that one!

[@kelseyadams421]

hello chis, mine i like this, except for the glass thing at the bottom, and it's only about 13 1/2 in. long model A652062. is there any place to get replacement parts if you wanted to restore one ? is there anyone that you know of that restores anything like this or similar ? i love anything like this. old jacks, cash regs, scales, clocks, radios, tvs, steam engines. the list goes on and on. nice video, i'll be checking out your others also. thanks for people like you who can tell the younger generations how things worked way back when. kelsey

[@ChrisStaecker]

I've never heard of restorers for this kind of thing, but to be honest I've never looked. Probably your best bet is getting another identical machine (preferably a really broken one) and taking its parts.

[@johnsrabe]

After Kurt Russell got zapped by the Burroughs machine, if you listened to his heart, you could hear Goldie Hawn. Awwwww.

[@Nothing19800]

I just bought one at a garage sale it’s missing the total key and a few other things but overall it looks to work what do you think it would be worth now no paper no ink strip spools but I do have some that work with an old typewriter.

[@ChrisStaecker]

It's always "worth" what someone will pay for it, which is hard to predict since so few people are buying and selling these machines. I myself wouldn't pay more than about $40 even for a complete one, so yours would be worth a bit less to me personally. I think I got mine for $20. But finding a buyer even willing to pay this much is tricky, since they're so heavy to ship. Unless you already know of a local buyer who'd be interested, I wouldn't suggest trying to "flip" one of these to make money.

[@maureenmarcil7786]

Hi Chris, I bought a beautiful burroughs, , it looks like the one in this video. It was working properly, but having it in my shop, people are always touching it. I saw yesterday that the keys were jammed. Usually, I hold down the button on the left side and pull the crank to release the keys. It will not do that. I can't figure out how to release the keys. Can you hel?Thank you so much..

[@ChrisStaecker]

Hi M- A Burroughs in the shop sounds great! This kind of jam can happen from time to time- my kids play with my machines sometimes and jam them. But I don't have any great advice... Usually it will work itself free if you try to push the crank - sometimes it's not fully pushed up or down. You could try removing the case and spraying the mechanism with oil if it doesn't fix easily.

[@maureenmarcil7786]

Oh yeah..lol...I was going to try and just spray WD40..I don;t want to open it as I have no idea what I am doing!! Lets see what happens..Thanks...

[@tonyennis1787]

Kurt Russel is great!

[@SukkaPunch321]

Could you do one on how to load paper and ink? I feel like I didn't put mine in correctly and the paper doesn't move up on its own after I do a calculation.

[@ChrisStaecker]

That could be a dried out platen. That's the rubber roller that the paper sits on. It needs to be a bit sticky & rubbery to grip the paper when it rolls. Google "typewriter clean platen" to see some simple options. Good luck!

[@jenniferparsons8378]

Sir, Is there a way to reverse the ink ribbon direction ?

[@karenrudd4526]

Great video! I rescued one of these from the dump. I wish I could find the paper carriage for handling wide sheets instead of just rolls. Any thoughts?

[@ChrisStaecker]

Nice rescue! The ones with the full paper carriage are very rare in my experience- I've never seen one in the wild. I don't think the different sizes are easy to swap, so I believe you'd have to find a totally different machine. Good luck!

[@stephenfloyd9900]

I have a burroughs visible model with 12" carriage.

[@ComputerRouter]

These Burroughs, or some shown in the sales brochure, are the first I've seen that can print on anything other than a thin roll of paper It looks like some are creating an itemized invoice... I assume a typewriter would have been used for the typing of the text. Which is weird, as a typewriter could perform all printing - they must have really valued the accuracy of the calculation over copy. Or am I misunderstanding something?

[@MattMcIrvin]

Being able to print directly onto a wide form seems like a nice perk--no need to copy the number!

[@Virtue2721]

How do you divide? is it even possible on a machine like this? i know it was possible on a competitor but only using a long and complicated process.

[@ChrisStaecker]

I would say division is not possible on this type of machine. You could do repeated subtractions to simulate long division, but this machine is not even really meant to do subtractions. Some machines of the day shipped with "reciprocal tables", which was a big list of reciprocals of numbers written as decimals. Then to divide by, say, 27, you would look up the reciprocal of 27 in the list, and multiply by that reciprocal. This would be easier than trying to simulate a long division, since multiplication is at least in theory something that the machine can assist with.

[@scottkelly8863]

Do you have an idea where I might be able to get a key to unlock the cover? I have a 9 column 9 digit machine.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Sorry- no clue. I’ve never seen a key for sale. Good luck!

[@cliffstansbery426]

Google making a class 3 case key. Easy to make.

[@barbarab202]

How does it work when one needs to include a number 0? It only has 1-9.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Just type nothing in that digit, and it defaults to 0

[@aaroneaton1027]

Just pick one up at the swap meet for five bucks

[@angelipskiss]

How much are these worth?

[@ChrisStaecker]

They're super heavy, so it's very expensive to ship one. But locally, people who have them are unlikely to find someone who wants one. So if you can find one, expect it to be cheap. But don't expect to find one easily. I paid $20 for this one.

[@eddiearista]

Where do you purchase these adding machines?

[@ChrisStaecker]

I'm in the US, so it's mostly ebay and Craigslist. Not many people want them, so they're pretty cheap if you get them locally. Shipping costs are usually prohibitive, certainly for a big machine like this one.

[@tombouie]

Hmmmmm that was geek-math & it was actually fun. I didn't know mathematicians was allowed to do such a thing. Oh-well, I have a small request/challenge for you. ?Could you simply/clearly/concisely/etc explain the practicality of quantum-computing so the rest of us mortals can understand it too? Thks

[@ChrisStaecker]

That's a tough one!

[@adamkangas193]

Compiler of video shows incorrectly how to add with adding machine. He does not notice the decimal point permanently fixed to the display window indicating the right most columns are are tenths and hundredths despite performing the calculation and looking right at it while filming it. The example he used 300. + 400 . will require the full use of the three rows of the white keys.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Yes I basically always ignore the built-in decimal point. I can’t be constrained!

[@jasonpeters9865]

This lead to a Opiate addicted grandkid...this invention. Shit, if I gotten an allowance of $200/month at 21. (Equal to almost $4,000/month today. .) I'd be a junkie writer too.