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VK-1
This is a mechanical machine, operated by cranking the handle. Note the extraordinary keyboard, shown in the close-up! The keys are ordered 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 in row 1, and 1, 3, 0, 6, 8 in row 2. How bizarre; a case of calculator-QWERTY, perhaps? Was this key layout used to improve efficiency, or perhaps reduce it?
Keyboard
Christofer Nöring writes...
Now for the calculators VK-1 and VK-2. I don't think that the 24579 / 13068 keyboard is strange at all. Originally it was used in the Dalton adding machine of 1902, but the Sundstrand was to set standards 10 years later with the ubiquitous 789 / 456 / 123.
In 1932, the Swedish Facit factory began manufacturing a hand-cranked calculator with keyboard input, and the Soviet VK-1 is obviously modelled after the Facit T (as the machine was called).
The VK-2 is an almost exact copy of the Facit ESA (Electric Super-Automatic) which arrived in 1945. All the Facits and Facit derivatives share the 24579 / 13068 keyboard, with the sole (?) exception of a Finnish (?) machine named the Precisa, which had 2468 / 13579 / 2468 / 0.
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Photo from eBay ad.
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© Sergei Frolov
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Photo from "Good's Dictionary" (1960)
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© Sergei Frolov
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Close-up of the unusual keyboard!
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© Sergei Frolov
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This VK-2 keyboard is slightly different, but clearer.
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