Walther made a calculator! Walther WSR-160 Review / HowTo

[@MiketheBassMan]

Mechanical computers like this would be great for intro programming classes. We talk about registers, operations, and cpu cycles as concepts and this has them all here literally.

[@ct6502c]

The crank could be considered like the clock, right?

[@BravoCharleses]

Mr. Staecker, I have complimented your closing remarks before because they are terse, witty, and incisive. You have outdone yourself this time. This channel is a gem. Thank you for making it!

[@scorinth]

That back-transfer mechanism is beautiful.

[@hughobyrne2588]

I re-watched it five times before I was ready to continue with the rest of the video. I'm gonna go watch it five more times, right now.

[@AimeePlaysMSM]

aha! Found it! In a manual for the Muldivo Mentor ( a quick google search should bring up the scan ): page 7 Division by subtraction Example 13: 144 ÷ 12 = 12 Shift carriage completely to right. Set dividend 144 in highest columns of register using the little discs located beside the figure wheels (the setting discs must be moved upwards). You may also begin by setting the dividend in the setting register and then transferring it into the result register by one clockwise turn of the crank hangle. In this instance, do not forget to clear the 1 which appears in column 8 of the revolution register. Place decimal indicator in result register behind 144,000 .. Now set divisor on setting register with leers 9 and 8. **To avoid confusion, a blue spot has been marked at the head of the column in which the highest digit of dividends and divisors may be set.** I hope this helps! :)

[@ChrisStaecker]

Thanks so much for this! I read through that same instruction book for details on the control things at the bottom of the carraige, but didn't look closely to see this note about the dot.

[@someonespadre]

Okay you can’t set a dividend or divisor in column 10.

[@43615]

The blue dot could be marking the starting position for square root computations, but I'd put it at the 8th digit. Look up how the algorithm for that works, it's quite fun.

[@sonoio2002]

The blue point is marking the leftmost place where you are supposed to put the first number of your dividend in, you can not start at the leftmost position

[@Minty1337]

4:40 "that thing times that thing is that thing" truely amazing commentary

[@TheBookDoctor]

Love the last line of the script!

[@Nashvillain10SE]

You can have my Walther WSR-160 when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!

[@RossMarsden]

When I was a student, I worked as an assistant chain man for a surveyer. The pro surveys used these machines in the field to calculate their transects. On Frisday afternoons, when all the work was done, we would all drink beer. One of the fun things to do was to set the units big wheel to 1, was see who could count the highest in one minute by turning der krank as fast as our hands could go.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Nice- sounds like a good way to break either der krank or deez hands!

[@gigy9330]

Not the crank - that's even childproof!

[@AngrocSound]

Great vid!! But that very brief shot of the inside sure left me hungry for more of that. Like how excactly the inner linkages and whatnot are put together. Thanks for making these, and loking forward to seeing more of the machines you got from that find.

[@johnsrabe]

If you’re leaving your house, but will need to add or multiply, put a Curda in a shoulder holster. Now that’s CONCEALED CARRY.

[@someonespadre]

My dream would be the double pinwheel machine made for artillery surveyors…it can calculate 2D coordinates given sine or cosine of direction and distance. It can go in opposite directions for NW or SE directions.

[@michaelmuffin]

Walther used to make vernier calipers.

[@BravoCharleses]

My pop had a Mauser dial bore gauge, a machinist's tool for measuring the diameter of holes with about 0.01mm of resolution. I imagine it's a similar story where they couldn't make weapons after WWI or WWII and switched to metrology.

[@thedroningbore]

How could it take soooo looong for me to discover (i.e., stumble across) your channel? 1st-rate content (visual & spoken), delivery, and editing :)

[@johnsrabe]

If you keep this machine on a collapsible shelf over your front door, you could PROTECT YOUR FAMILY by having it drop on the INTRUDER’s head. If you need more PROTECTION FOR YOUR FAMILY, you could build a bigger shelf and put another adding machine up there.

[@NickSayers]

LOL! Adding machines don’t kill people. Adding machine nerds kill people.

[@stephenfreeborn]

Nice video. The Walther is the one I use whenever my wife's friends come over and want to be really impressed.

[@johnsrabe]

For the win.

[@retrogiftsuk4812]

WSR-160 or PPK ?

[@paulhorn2665]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@cavere]

What an impressive video. Smart machine!

[@spiderstheythem]

thank you for this wonderful video. this machine is extremely fascinating, both mechanically and socially

[@Manabender]

10:46 Right before the footage ends, I noticed that the second-least-significant digit in the counter went from 0 to 9, despite the register bar being shifted to the fifth-least-significant digit. What happened here, I wonder? Was this a temporary "glitch" that fixed itself after the end of the footage? Or was this a genuine mechanical error?

[@ChrisStaecker]

I think you are the first to notice- this video actually has a huge amount of movie-magic funny business. The truth is, my machine actually isn't working properly- the wheels inside are slightly misaligned, and so they usually work fine but often it'll add values into locations when it shouldn't. Much of the footage I used has been doctored to hide this fact- I considered just saying up front that the answers are often wrong, but I decided instead to learn how to do some fancy (to me) compositing tricks to fake the display. For example the shot at 4:38 is manipulated- specifically the counter often adds in positions where it shouldn't, so I faked it. Good catch!

[@DrBovdin]

A calculator of this caliber would definitely be as deadly as a ppk in close quarters combat - the blunt trauma from slamming one of these in the head of ones adversary probably would be quite effective 😉

[@jamiehardt3061]

If I'm not mistaken, channel favorite Curt Herzstark worked for Walther between World War I and World War II.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Interesting… thanks

[@jamiehardt3061]

@@ChrisStaecker I believe I'm mistaken, I'd heard it somewhere but I can't find any information that corroborates it, it's possible that the workshop he was assigned to at Buchenwald was run by Walther, though that's a very different thing.

[@paulhorn2665]

I don't know if he worked at Walther. I heard somewhere that Mr. Walther and Mr. Herzstark were good friends and Mr. Walther visited him at the concentration camp and smuggled cigarettes and vitamin pills inside for him, while Mr. Herzstark invented the Curta. Likewise, I don't know if it is really true but a nice story non- the-less

[@AimeePlaysMSM]

I did see some other models which have the input digits numbered (10 to 1, left to right), where the 9 is blue. It must hold some significance, but *what?*

[@19ghost73]

It marks the position of the 1st digit for division. You can't use the input slider to the left of it, as the carriage can't move that far with its digits. So it made sense for WALTHER to mark that 1st digit's position in a non-disturbing but still visible fashion.

[@alanesq1]

My first machine which started my collection was one of these but until you mentioned it I had never noticed the blue dot before. I also have absolutely no idea what it is there for!

[@19ghost73]

The older version of the WSR160 doesn't have the blue dot, but a band with the figures 1-10 for the 10 input register sliders. The 9th position in that band is blue, too...so it IS a marker for that position. Which is the left-most position for a division.

[@JeremySpidle]

Is there a future where all the gun factories are retooled for building calculators? Because that's a future I could get behind.

[@johnsrabe]

I wouldn’t count on it.

[@quertize]

For your other series of calculators spotted in movies: there is a scene in Mask movie where mechanical calculator is used by the main character in the titular Mask trying to recreate accountant work.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Yes- that one's on my list! It was actually the first clip that made me think of doing that series.

[@shoofle]

i want one so bad! unfortunately i do not have any use for it and it would take up space and money. add to that (hah!) that my first adding machine purchase is probably going to be some monroe machine, on account of family history. but maybe a pinwheel is what i really want.

[@imrustyokay]

"I'll take Jesus over John Wayne any day." is actually a pretty cool line.

[@ChrisStaecker]

More or less ripped off from a popular book title, but the American church needs a refresher. (I say that as an insider)

[@scorinth]

Ooooh, I've never seen an adding gun before. Typing gun, yes, but not adding gun.

[@Pillowcase]

Even got the Walther logo!

[@johnsrabe]

Holy Hannah! LC Smith the typewriter company also made shotguns. (Not the same Smith as Smith&Wesson.)

[@gigy9330]

My father had the exact same model. I loved to play with it as a child. I can't remember the blue dot, but I'll ask my dad about it.

[@gigy9330]

I checked - his does not have the mysterious blue dot.

[@19ghost73]

​@@gigy9330Not all versions had it. I got 2 WSR160s, and only the later version (recognized by the higher serial no.) has it.

[@grkvlt]

are you sure it wasn't purchased on 06 december 1979 (instead of 12 june) with the date being in standard european dd/mm/yy format as used in amsterdam? great video, though, really clear explanaions and presentation, keep it up!

[@ChrisStaecker]

I think this guy was American, so I guessed he's using the standard (weird) American system.

[@orbitingancient]

Lovely video

[@lafcursiax]

Who is that handsome fellow shaking hands with Leibniz? And what does it say on his chest?

[@ChrisStaecker]

That's a DALL-E generated image. So who really knows? I wanted Leibniz as a 1980's hair-metal band frontman, but I couldn't get a good result.

[@lafcursiax]

@@ChrisStaecker Perhaps it's a robotic personification of calculus

[@febobartoli]

If we were only as obsessed with calculators and typewriters as we are with guns, there just might be fewer shootings and more sternly written letters to the editor.

[@johnsrabe]

0:50 that guy who used to own the house sure was a weirdo!

[@19ghost73]

"WSR160" = "W)ALTHER S)chnell-R)echenmaschine Typ 160", with 16digit result display. "Oh thank You for that info, Capt. Obvious!" 😂

[@FiveTrackTape]

Extremely complete, but needs a suppressor. (Also "Der Krank" lololol.)

[@kuripangui]

I do like a good ding too

[@just_a_quick_ride]

The pin(wheel) is mightier than the sword. And by "sword" I mean "gun".

[@colinstu]

Leave a comm- !

[@xoppa09]

did anybody get scared at around 3:51

[@cdorcey1735]

What are the chances that mechanical calculators such as these were used to design atomic weapons? Of course, the fission bomb was used before the end of WW-2, but fusion? It would be exceedingly ironic if the hydrogen bomb was designed using Walther calculators.

[@ChrisStaecker]

The first Walther calculators appeared between the two World Wars, so it's possible that one of them made their way to Los Alamos. But there were comparable good American machines too, so I wouldn't say there's any reason to expect Walthers were used.

[@19ghost73]

BRUNSVIGAs were used a lot.

[@bytesandbikes]

Der Krank 😂

[@GreggDurishan]

the ppk pistol?!? cmon the p38 with the super cool attachments from megatron / man from uncle had several generations of kids fascinated. i don't even care about guns but that's one damn cool gun. oh and cool calculator too.

[@ChrisStaecker]

OK I must admit I thought Megatron's gun form looked awesome when I was a kid.

[@BravoCharleses]

​@@ChrisStaecker I did too. Sometimes when things look cool doesn't mean they are cool upon further introspection.

[@GreggDurishan]

@@BravoCharleses coolness, like humor, often withers under analysis. it's a vicarious thing. when you start demanding something fit into your worldview before it can be cool, you start slipping into "am i out of touch? no, it's the kids who are wrong" territory. expecting cool to be smart/safe is like expecting haute couture fashion show clothes to be practical: possible but unlikely, and missing the point. i imagine half of us are here just because we find metal fidgety things with lots of doodads cool.

[@OldManBOMBIN]

You know what's even better than fewer guns? Tons more guns

[@OldManBOMBIN]

Aww man, I was gonna leave this comment and then saw that I already did 😢

[@Johnny-jr2lq]

Fewer guns is debatable but I suppose that’s all dependent on your personal opinion. And THAT my friend is what makes America 🇺🇸 the greatest country in the world. Along with a couple very important documents. The constitution and the bill of rights.

[@thebigblah13]

Nope... More Guns and Those who know little or nothing about them not telling everyone else as if they know better! More Guns and Less Gun Ignorance. Enjoyed this video till the statement you made at the end :)

[@ChrisStaecker]

I already live in your more-guns world, and I don't like it...

[@Laundry_Hamper]

@@ChrisStaecker I live in Ireland, where there are relatively few guns. People are very rarely shot with guns here for some unclear reason

[@thebigblah13]

@@Laundry_Hamper yeah people are just stabbed instead. Also a place where people are imprisoned for memes on the internet…

[@thebigblah13]

@@ChrisStaecker you don’t… I listed two parameters and the second hasn’t been met… the world has never been so ignorant with guns and that’s why it’s so easy to convince non-critical thinkers they don’t need or deserve to protect themselves.

[@Laundry_Hamper]

@@thebigblah13 no, you think that ireland is part of great britain. it isn't. strike two!