The Victor series 2 adding machine

The Victor 2 adding machine was made from 1920 till about 1928, though only few were made after 1924, when the series 3 was released.
For more information about this and other machines in my collection, please visit my website:
www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/
0:00 Introduction

[@stephenfreeborn]

Nice Victor. I couldn’t get mine working. I’ll try again some day.

[@jaapsch2]

The only problem that mine had was the printing mechanism. It was completely seized, and I broke it a little when trying to work it loose. It turns out that the platen's axle is not a single rod all the way through, and now the right hand side knob no longer works to move the paper as it just turns almost freely. I should have taken the printing mechanism apart before trying to wrench the axle loose. Anyway, while mine has a lot of surface rust, the internal mechanism was fine.

[@Xpian]

I noticed the 'Complements' on the keys, so I'm assuming if one knew the subtraction algorithm that one could, in fact, even subtract on this machine. Although without Comptometer Cut-off keys for subtraction, I suppose the Burroughs' method of loading all the noughts or zeros with nines to the left of the number being taken away would work. There was, however, no printout on a Burroughs Calculator nor on a Felt & Tarrant Comptometer, so the subtraction printout on this would look bizarre to those unfamiliar with it! I can't tell you how much I enjoy your videos and your website! Cheers!

[@jaapsch2]

You're right, I hadn't even thought about that. I suppose subtraction would mostly have been used to fix mistakes, and then it does not really matter how it looks.

[@Xpian]

​@@jaapsch2 I'm sure you're right... I can remember doing something similar once, in the case of having added an Invoice No. (or an Account No.) taking it out of the total by doing the complements in my head because I didn't have them on the keys. Then placing the number in question below (using the Non-Add button this time) and then circling all three lines, i.e. the mistake, the correction, and the subsequent correct Non-Add so I could account for it to my boss. I was just a teen and this was on an old Burroughs Listing machine in a Building Society (Co-op.) back in the day when the doors were shut early to the public, circa 3.30 pm, and we had to balance the day's work before we could leave.

[@gregreynolds5686]

How do you get the ink/paper for these demonstrations? I've been watching for a while and you often seem to manage it.

[@jaapsch2]

Luckily, these early machines set the standards for many machines that followed. The Victor uses a paper roll that is 57mm wide (or 2 1/4 inch) and that is still used in many cash registers today. Ink ribbons can be trickier, but the victor uses a standard 1/2 inch wide two-colour ribbon that was also used in typewriters for over a century, so those are also not too hard to find. It helps that I don't have to use a full ribbon. I can cut up a single typewriter ribbon into shorter pieces and spool up 5 calculators with that. To get other ribbon sizes can be harder, and may need a specialist supplier.

[@janebaker4912]

In the Hugh Jackman movie "the greatest show" ...is this the machine the charecter uses?

[@jaapsch2]

No, those were Burroughs adding machines, though they are operated in a very similar way. On the Burroughs page of my site I have a screenshot of that scene and write "In the trailer for the film The Greatest Showman you can see a scene in which Hugh Jackman is playing P.T. Barnum before he was famous. He is in a large office sitting behind a desk, and working on a class 1 Burroughs adding machine. The office has about 30 desks, half of which have a Burroughs machine, all without printing mechanisms. This is highly anachronistic since the scene is supposedly set in the early 1830s, seventy years before these machines were used in such quantity." www.jaapsch.net/mechcalc/burroughs.htm#burroughs

[@janebaker4912]

@@jaapsch2 oh wow. You've blown me away. I tried to think about a life of using this machine all day everyday.

[@brentusfirmus]

Hoi Jaap, niet relevant voor deze video maar ik probeer al een tijd contact met jou op te nemen over de Sudoku-generator op je website, die het niet meer doet. Heb meerdere keren naar het mailadres aldaar gemaild maar krijg steeds geen antwoord.