An unusually busy week for me this week, so I’m sharing this wonderful video of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra performing Leroy Anderson’s 1950 composition, “The Typewriter,” featuring, yes, a typewriter:

via Dan Rather

If the embedded video player in this post isn’t working for you, the direct Youtube link is here: “The Typewriter” performance

Copy and share – the link is here. Never miss a post from the Analog Office! Subscribe here to get blog posts via email.

Wondering how to manage your paper-based or hybrid paper-digital systems? Ask me a question.

REFERENCE

Leroy Anderson: Ritvélin (The Typewriter) (2018), performed by Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Available at: www.youtube.com/watch (Accessed: 16 May 2023).

First off, apologies to newsletter subscribers: Due to technical difficulties, last Friday’s Analog Office newsletter went out late.

In case you missed it, if you want to know why a home shredder is the one office toy I kicked to the curb, click here for why you (probably!) don’t need one; and what you can do instead.

Those dinky home office shredders have no place here at Analog Office World Headquarters, but we do have another paper shredder, who always has a home here.

And – unlike a machine shredder – she’s decorative, too: The Posey model pops in classic black and white “Tuxedo” styling.

Regular chomping on box corners keeps our girl more than ready to rip up our valuable documents. (We try to put papers away before she eats them, but sometimes she wins.)

Check out 6 seconds of focused cardboard corner destruction, right here.

She also specializes in flattening bubble wrap, something that no machine shredder can do for you.

Go, Posey, go!

Yeah. No more bubbles.

Her work is done.

For now.

Do you manage the household budget?

Organize the household taxes?

Maybe even have your own business?

Then an adding machine, one that prints, is not an office toy for you. It’s an essential tool.

I use spreadsheets as well as a finance app, but the adding machine is my financial thinking tool.

You can run some speculative numbers, and write notes on the tape. (Or you can run some real numbers, and sob into the tape as if it were a tiny, narrow Kleenex.)

You might see these also called 10-key calculators, but many ten-key calculators use standard data functions, not financial ones.

Look specifically for an adding machine, often marketed these days as a two-color printing calculator.

To make sure it’s set up for business or accounting functions, look for “Tax +” and “Tax -” keys.

Yeah. It’s that cool.

Adding Machines Are NOT the Same as the Calculator on Your Phone, or Your Scientific Calculator from Ninth Grade

I am calling this device an “adding machine” because these machines are calculators specifically designed to compute financial transactions, rather than data or engineering numbers.

Like cash registers, the logic used for these machines is based on common financial functions. (In fact, some small “mom and pop” businesses use adding machines instead of cash registers.)

These babies crunch all those lovely numbers with curr€nc¥ $igns. They calculate tax rates. They tabulate long columns of money going in, and money going out.

That is what they are designed to do, and they do it very, very well.

This is so important I will say it again: if you are the household financial number cruncher, or if you have your own business, get your own adding machine. Haunt the thrift stores, and you might find one for less than $10.

When it comes to crunching budget numbers, regular calculators just waste your time.

Adding machines are still manufactured and widely used. Businesses with accounting software still use them. In fact, our accountant at the fancy firm with the giant monitors uses one.

That’s because there really isn’t an app or regular calculator that fits their niche as well.

Why Not Just Use a Regular Calculator?

A few reasons:

• You can track and print long columns of transactions - very useful for cross-checking against statements or spreadsheets (”OMG we really DID spend that much on vacation”)
• Rather than going to the bother of setting up a spreadsheet, you can just run a few numbers
• You can print numbers in two colors (black for positive numbers, red for negative numbers), which makes it even easier to cross-check when you’re adding and subtracting a lot
• You can easily calculate percentages and margins (e.g. taxes, raises, profits, etc.)
• A desktop number board is MUCH easier and faster to use than pecking out numbers on a mobile phone, or from the line of numbers across the top of a laptop keyboard
• They specialize in financial calculations — super simple to figure costs with these, the common functions are programmed in
• They are fun

What Kind of Adding Machine Should You Get?

You want an adding machine with paper printing tape that prints two colors (usually black for positive numbers / credits, red for negative numbers / debits).

You’ll also want a full size desk model: much easier to type fast on those bigger keys.

We don’t need to drain our willpower calling up fine motor skills for a tiny keyboard, when we are already doing something stressful. We need speed, so we can stop budgeting sooner and go out and play, right?

If you buy a new one, you can get a basic, budget Casio with all of the features above for under $40 at the time of this writing — just fine for the occasional user.

They ARE fun to use, and so much easier than wrangling numbers on a digital calculator.

You’ll thank me, come tax time.

How to Use an Adding Machine

Adding machines do not work like most calculators.

Repeat after me: Adding machines do not work like most calculators.

For budgeting, I occasionally use the percentage function, but mostly I’m adding and subtracting.

To add, subtract, and find the total with an adding machine, type in the number first, then the operator (+ or -).

Example — let’s add 1+2+3, then we’ll subtract the number 4. Enter it like this:

1+

2+

3+

4-

If it helps, think of the operator as an ‘enter’ key.

After you have entered all the numbers, do NOT hit that “equals” (=) key.

INSTEAD of the = key, hit the asterisk * (or T) key for your total (depending on your machine).

For our example above, you would type in:

1+

2+

3+

4-

*

…to get a total of 2.

(In the picture below, my decimal function is set to two points, because I use mine to add and subtract dollars and cents. Yeah, these babies have decimal and rounding functions.)

For multiplying and dividing, it’s similar to a regular calculator: you use the = key instead of the total key (* or T). (NOTE: On an adding machine, the asterisk ‘*’ is your “Total” key. You’ll see an ‘X’ key for the multiplication function. )

For calculating percentages, it’s also the same as most calculators.

If you struggle with percentages, so do I.

Here’s my favorite link on calculating percentages: I call it the “Percentages for Poets” page.

Follow the instructions for calculators with a percentage button, because your adding machine is one of those.

Adding machines do all kinds of neat tricks with taxes and rates if you’re seriously number-crunching, but I mostly just add, subtract, total, and figure percentages.

Visual learners, here is a quick kitchen table video review of “number first, then operator” when it comes to adding and subtracting, and then hitting the asterisk (*) key for the total. (Do NOT touch that “equals” sign for adding and subtracting financial transactions. I know, it’s weird… but you’ll get used to it.)

Here is a thorough video guide to using one. Go to 8 minutes to see how to install the tape, and go to 9:50 minutes to get a key-by-key tour of the keyboard.

What an Adding Machine Sounds Like

Okay, my grandmother was a bookkeeper, and I adored her. So I love the sound of an adding machine.

Take a listen: here is the sound of me adding up what we just spent on vacation.

REFERENCES

How to use an adding machine (2012). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8sg-3JPPOY (Accessed: 5 October 2022).

How to Work Out a Percentage Using a Calculator (no date) Sciencing. Available at: https://sciencing.com/work-out-percentage-using-calculator-7598661.html (Accessed: 5 October 2022).

Sharp EL-1197P and EL-1197PIII adding machines (2019). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Em8skjve5M (Accessed: 4 October 2022).

Okay. So. This truly is an office toy for me.

I didn’t NEED one of these. But when I was a child, I tried one at a real office back in ancient times, and oh… I wanted one, I wanted one baaaad.

I just love mechanical things that print on paper, like rubber stamps, typewriters, adding machines, and oh yes, numbering machines. (I do not yet own a mimeograph machine or a letterpress machine, but I would certainly like to.)

I have had this automatic numberer since becoming a grownup who could buy such things; and it is fun. I make many of my notebooks useful because I use this to number the pages.

A few things to know about automatic numberers if you want one bad, too:

• The plastic ones you get at big box office stores fall apart. A key component of a good office toy is that it is something that can be used with vigor, so I ponied up for this metal one and have never looked back.

• Get the self-inking kind. Most are, but some are not, so read the fine print.

• Numberers come with a plastic stick. The stick is there so you can push the wheels and reset the stamp to where you want your number series to start. If you lose it, a pencil or a chopstick can do the job.

• Each number wheel has a blank setting. This is nice, because otherwise you would be stamping: 000001, 000002 instead of something more manageable. Figure out if you’re going into single, double, triple or more digits, and then push the wheels on the end to the blank settings before you start numbering any pages. Here is my numberer set up for a three-digit series: check out the metal stamp zeros on the left, and the rectangles on the right. The rectangles won’t print on the paper.

• These things are less like simple rubber stamps and more like typewriters — lots of moving parts in there. Protect this office toy by setting the lock mechanism when you’re not using it, and packing it somewhere where it won’t collect dust, or Cheerios, or cat hair. (Hey, no judgment here. I’m just sayin’.)

My mother has a sign that reads: “Don’t Look Back, You’re Not Going That Way.”

And this is true of numbering machines as well. Once you start stamping, they start numbering forward, ever forward. Perhaps that is a deep metaphor. (Or perhaps not.)

Take a listen to this decisive sound:

https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/58173/2022/55683402d1.mp3

I like to have the date on just about everything I write.

My master calendar and task tracking apps are digital, but I use a paper notebook for my daily plan and work log. What makes it MORE likely that I will a) record the date, and b) be able to read it later (my handwriting’s not the greatest) is using a date stamp.

This helps me stay focused. And obviously, for a work log, it’s important to record the date as you go.

Because paper helps me to keep my focus, I also use index cards and pocket notebooks to write down certain kinds of notes and ideas. It helps to put the date on these, too: it gives me context when Past Anna wrote a note that is a bit cryptic to Present Anna.

Also, thoughts and ideas can expire. If I come across a note and see that the date is from a year or two ago, odds increase that I can toss that note.

An early 20th century writer whose name has burrowed too deeply into the prairie dog village I laughingly call my brain, used to toss all his postal mail in a pile. Once a year or so, he would rummage through it, check the dates, and say, “Well, it’s too late to do anything about that now….”

Recording the date on a note — even a grocery list — helps me say the same.

Besides the practical reasons for using my date stamp, there is an aesthetic one: this stamp is heavy-duty and it makes a great “ker-CHUNK” sound when I use it.

So satisfying. It’s like I finished something even before I got started.