July 27, 2026

This Week in Amateur Radio

North America's Premiere Amateur Radio News Magazine

via Hackaday: Voltmeter-Based Floating Point Calculator Does It In Style

[lcamtuf] is not just a calculator superfan, but also a skilled builder. That much is evident in the fabulous  design of Calcumator 2000, an electromechanical calculator that uses voltmeter readouts as digits (plus one at the bottom to represent decimal place). There are plenty of high-quality build images, so give it a look!

Meters like the one on the right (numbered 0 to 9) act as digit displays. The meter on the left indicates decimal position.

Calcumator 2000 is a bit of a love letter to a time when display technology hadn’t quite yet produced anything suitable for calculator use. This resulted in calculator designs that are generally unrecognizable compared to the 7-segment display based devices we see today. The Calcumator 2000, in all its electromechanical glory, would have fit right in that era.

Read more – Hackaday: https://hackaday.com/2026/07/13/voltmeter-based-floating-point-calculator-does-it-in-style/