an adding machine (from Twitter)

[solarbird]

Another bit of Twitter writing, while doing taxes.

---

I finally got a proper _adding machine_ for taxes.

I love it already.


This thing is _so unlike_ a calculator. I mean, sure, it does the basics - the _very_ basics - but it's so incredibly optimised for accounting. It's _great_.

And that's the key (lol) point, right? It's a calculator in that it calculates, but _not_ a calculator in that it doesn't work like ordinary calculators.

If you put a printer on a calculator - or bring up the "paper tape" in macOS's calculator app - you do _not_ get _this_.

This is a linear descendant of the old mechanical adding machines. Multiplication and division are like a side-car add-on, and they're _still kept_ that way, and for the purposes of accounting?

It's _better_ that way.

And it's better that way because it's, okay, I've got this fuckoff tally going, oh shit, I need to divide some shit or do some percentages, but _that's okay_, I can pop over on the left and do it in basically a calculation fugue state - and then bring it back right and add it in.

_Without_ having to resort to the memory function or any of that nonsense, even though it's got that built in too, so you can basically do _two_ running tallies, separately. And fugue state over for multiplication/division/percentages/taxes w/e on the left when you need them.

And that doesn't even get into the special function like setting fixed digits of printed precision, three rounding modes, stock calculations, stuff like that.

Or the print roll. Holy fuck the print roll, so you can check your entire entry history without it being a nightmare.

macOS's "print roll" functionality in the calculator is _completely wrong and broken_ when it comes to accounting, and Apple should feel bad about it.

I mean, ffs, they have bean counters. Ask _them_.

If this sounds a little like an Adam Savage Favourite Tool video but in tweet form? Yeah maybe lol.

But seriously, I've wanted one for years, I finally said "so what if I only use it a few days a year, it's a good tool" and I've only had it a day and already?

I love it.

ps: how bad is a standard calculator at this task? This bad. It's bad enough that I was using this instead. Really. It's no worse, and in a few ways? Better.


(I got it at an elderly neighbour's garage sale some years ago. It works!)

Comments

[librarygeek]

My dad's an accountant, CPA, and I still automatically check any calculator or adding machine with this simple process:

1) Fill the screen with 9s, ex. 999,999,999.
2) Divide ÷ by 81.
3) Hit = and look at your answer. Adding machine gives different significant numbers than my phone calc app...

Flip it. 12356789.123456789×81=....

Number patterning is fun, but I learned that habit before I remember, so it just gives me something to examine about how different the calculations and rounding errors might be.

I don't generally need that level of precision these days, but I like seeing the variance.

[stickmaker]

And then there's the Curta, the original, hand-held, four-function calculator:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

The original was largely steel, but there are plans for additive manufacturing all-plastic versions.

[arethinn]

macOS has a calculator app? iOS 14 (or at least iPadOS 14, since they're separate now) still doesn't have one, and I have read that this is for some fucky reason like "Steve Jobs didn't like the app design submitted for the first iPhone so it shipped without one and here we still are".

[solarbird]

iOS for the phone always has - I had an original iPhone, though it was hand-me-down and had been upgraded past the original 1.0 iOS so maybe it didn't _always_ always. But it's had one for a very long time.

My current phone, running the latest iOS, still has one. It's both scientific and four-function-plus-a-little modes, depending upon phone rotation. (Rotating the phone doesn't clear anything, so it's legit - go landscape to see more buttons, basically.)

So I don't know where that rumour started, but... yeah. Not true. I guess iPadOS is the odd-device out.

[arethinn]

Weird, then, because I got the iPad before the split in iOS into the iPhone and iPad paths. It never had a calculator app.

[solarbird]

The iPhone version also looks like the macOS version, basically. Very similar, anyway.

[kathmandu]

A tool you only use a few days a year can still be a good tool.

I still file my taxes on paper. I keep white-out specifically for fixing errors in ink on the tax forms.