JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
There’s a certain gravitational attraction for the user/machine interface of 19th century tech that is highly–pardon me–attractive. All I want to do here in this simple post is share a few of these that I bumped into yesterday while on the search for 1880s calculating devices, one of which appears below. The three detail images below display some of the beauty of these machines and the point at which they come into contact with its operator. First, the keys for a very early image of Dorr E. Felt’s “Comptometer” calculating machine (1885); the second is a detail of Stabler’s Single Call telephone exchange (1884), and the third the business end of an electric bell display cabinet, also from 1884. (The full images are displayed below along with their sources.)
From the front page of Electrical World for March 8, 1884: