Welcome

This site is dedicated to Herbert Schneemann (1941-2014)

You are about to explore the website on calculating machines. To present these machines we chose what we think is the best source THE BOOK. Die Rechenmaschinen   was written by Ernst Martin in German in 1925. Later editions of this book had some newer machines included, going up to 1935. There was a photo-reprint done of this book in the 90-ies, using the latest German edition. In 1990 Peggy Aldrich Kidwell and Michael R. Williams translated the original 1925 edition into English. The US translation titled "The Calculating Machines"  was printed by MIT Press and The Charles Babbage Institute as part of  "History of Computing"  series in 1992. We are very grateful to MIT Press for their permission to reproduce Martin s book on our web site.

This site has been created to add value to The Book, by providing pictures, brochures, links and all other information that you can see here. This site is still work in progress and your help in enriching it would be appreciated; if you have access to images of calculating machines or information about machines from before 1925, please email . The authors will be very grateful if you help making this site more complete.

The initial idea to create this web site came from one of the authors, Walter Szrek. Having been a calculating machines enthusiast and collector for a few years, already having displayed his collection on his web site, he planted a seed for this concept on his site. It wouldn t have become a reality if it wasn t for another collector, Herbert Schneemann (web site),  who happened to view Walter s web site and thought he could actually help make it happen. Herbert did not know then that he would have to do most of the work!J.

Both Herbert and Walter are big fans of these beautiful machines, but they have a limited knowledge of the subject, so to create this site they had to get help from many other people and institutions. Without them the web site would not have become as good as it is. We want to give credit to all contributors, including the owners of the machines or materials. If you find that we did not properly acknowledge your input, images or help, please let us know email (see below). All the mistakes and omissions are ours; please let us know when you find any.

Herbert left us in May 2014. I am missing him each time I look at this website. I miss his wisdom, his warmth and his dedication to create a place for all fans and collectors to look for. I miss our nightly conversations and his friendship.

Disclaimer:

From Kevin Odhner's web-page:

"I am sure that at various points I will realize with horror that I have omitted people deserving of credits, at which time I will quickly add them. My apologies in the meantime. I am at this point unsure of where I got certain photos, or who owns them. Where possible, I will try to contact the owners of the machines and ask permission to use the photos, however, in some cases I picked up images from eBay, or received scannings from Breker catalogs, which means that ownership is changing or unknown to me. This site is not for profit, and I hope that people will be lenient if they find a photo here which they took, or is of a machine they own. Just report it to me, and I'll either remove it or give the proper credit, as you wish."

These   Kevin Odhner's words are so perfectly describing our situation that we will not try to enhance, but just re-use them.

Welcome & enjoy our site

important copyright note:

2003-2009 Herbert Schneemann and Walter Szrek. 

All the pictures, articles and any other material are the copyright of the mentioned source. 

Please do not copy or reprint without a written permission.

to contact us pls. e-mail to asia@szrek.com

   wir sprechen auch Deutsch (Herbert)

   je parle francais (Walter)

   M wimy po Polsku (Walter)

you will need the Acrobat Reader to view some included files. if you don't have it already installed, pls. download the free program for Windows  or for the Mac 

you are visitor no:  since 13.03.04

last updated: 14.06.09