Play this piece here (MP3 - 6MB) or view a slightly shorter version in video on Digibarn TV.
Brooke Boering (on right) with three of the four Felt & Tarrant comptometers he donated to the Digibarn
Longtime Santa Cruz area resident Brooke Boering has been a collector of Felt & Tarrant comptometers (small desktop business adding/multiplying machines) for many years. Years before, as a young man, Brooke had briefly had a job servicing "compts" as an "oiler", keeping the machines running smoothly in various offices. In the last few years he began to collect compts and amassed one of (if not the) greatest collections in the world. His knowledge of compts is equally as impressive. Listen to Brooke tell the story of Felt & Tarrant and the comptometer here (MP3 - 6MB).
I have known Brooke Boering for years having been contacted by him about our "J" model compt back in 2002. I subsequently linked to his pages on comptometers and planned to meet him in person some day (as he was a neighbor in Santa Cruz county). In May of 2006 Brooke was moving and donated a large number of his comptometers to a museum dedicated to Felt, the co-founder of the company that made them. I visited him and got a full tour of his compt collection. I invited him to come up to the Digibarn when our first open house happened in June.
See the Digibarn's collection of comptometers
Brooke had a few comptometers left over after making his big donation and gave four excellent (working!) models to the Digibarn which are well documented on this page. On June 11, 2006, Brooke came to our first open house of the year and described the Felt & Tarrant company and its product, the comptometer. You can listen to Brooke's retelling of the story here (MP3 - 6MB) or watch a slightly shorter version of the presentation in video here on Digibarn TV.
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