hey everybody its Adam from tested and we have a really cool unboxing today it
is in this box and oh it makes me so excited but before I crack this show you
what's inside I'm gonna do a little bit of history see humans have always been
interested in numbers and quantifying their surroundings it's one of the ways
in which we further understand the universe and we have invented some very
clever methods for doing it in the beginning of course humans use things
like an abacus abacus abacus abacus and abacus this they use things like this to
do some fairly sophisticated calculations later on of course we move
to things like the slide rule this very make and model is similar to what the
scientist for the Apollo program used to get us to the moon and of course we're
all familiar with digital calculators but this this is a special digital
calculator because it was the first mass-market produced hand-held
digital calculator and what Texas Instruments did with this was not only
bring about a sea change in computation for the masses but they also killed
they killed dead what may have been the most advanced mechanical calculator have
her release to the public and that's where this story begins this is one of
my favorite devices in all of the world and it's called a kurta computer
invented by Kurt her stuck while imprisoned in a concentration camp
in World War two I'm serious he came up with the idea for this calculator in the
concentration camp and when the war ended he went and built a few hundred
thousand of these over several decades this is a type one kurta computer it is
a completely mechanical you set according to this register the numbers
that you want to add subtract multiply and divide and then you turn this little
crank the crank was the reason it was affectionately known as the coffee
grinder calculator and the results come up here on top now this is a type 1 and
this is a type 2 I am proud to own a pair of these in my collection because
mechanically they're masterpieces there's over sick
hundred pieces in this little baby and that's where the unboxing happens see
what's in here is a very special kurta computer about a year and a half ago or
so I became aware that there was this guy online named Marcus woo who had
endeavored to make his own kurta on a 3d printer because the resolution of a 3d
printer is fairly low he was making it large-scale a giant oversized kurta
computer I think it's 3 X sized and I asked if I could purchase one from him
and we worked out a deal and in this box right here is a three times normal sized
3d printed kurta computer from Marcus well you don't have to imagine because
we're gonna open it right now what did he do oh my god there's a box
Marcus is clearly an obsessive and amazing crafts person for even
endeavoring to make a kurta computer but lo he has look at this I don't even know
which way to oh I guess this is how right
okay he's made an absolutely gorgeous doweled wooden box with a label here
that says kurta and the original logo of the kurta computer I'm feeling a little
emotional right about now okay here we go
nice brass hardware
now we actually have footage of Marcus assembling building this kurta computer
for me and that will be part of this video because it's an insane endeavor to
put one of these together there are so many tiny little parts even at 3x scale
I'm certain there are some parts of surpassing tiny nough sand precision
required without further ado let us see what Marcus hath oh my gosh look at this
oh man Marcus you are a madman look at the finish on this thing holy I'm having
trouble not using expletives I'm so excited
maybe you just blur my mouth for a second holy
ha there we go you know roughly what I said look at this thing it is
he's replicated a three time sorry I was just about to tell you some facts about
it but then I looked at the bottom and so on the bottom of a kurta computer
this is what it says made in Lichtenstein etc etc etc and the serial
number etc here's what Marcos has put on the bottom of his so full disclosure
Marcus came out while I was out on tour this spring and we spent an evening
going over one of the rough interim builds of this and I saw it and it was
magnificent then but it doesn't even hold a candle to what this is the finish
is just as beautiful as it looks upon the first glance here it's so pretty
oh my god ok so I want to run it through some paces here let's see first there's
right there's that that's the zeroing knob the registers set just like on a
normal computer that is a long helical gear look okay so if we take let's say
55 550 and we turn the dial once it functions just like the real thing the
number 55 comes up here Wow and then if I want to erase that watch this ready
you can take a look at all these
isn't that crazy I'm so terrified of breaking any part of this by moving it
but it's so beautiful you know how much I love objects this is a truly
magnificent object and Marcus I applaud your insanity your dedication your
perseverance and your actual building and finishing techniques this is truly
magnificent and I am so honored to add it to my collection thank you
you