Dorr E. Felt's Comments on his "Macaroni Box"


"It was near Thanksgiving Day of 1884, and I decided to use the holiday in the construction of the wooden model. I went to the grocer's and selected a box which seemed to me to be about the right size for the casing. It was a macaroni box, so I have always called it the macaroni box model. For keys I procured some meat skewers from the butcher around the corner and some staples from a hardware store for the key guides and an assortment of elastic bands to be used for springs. When Thanksgiving day came, I got early and went to work with a few tools, principally a jack knife"

"I soon discovered that there were some parts which would require better tools than I had at hand for the purpose, and when night came I found that the model I had expected to construct in a day was a long way to be complete or in working order. I finally had some of the parts made out of metal, and finished the model soon after New Year's day, 1885."


SOURCE:

J.A.V. Turck, "Origin of Modern Calculating Machines." The Western Society of Engineers, Chicago, 1921, pp. 55.


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