“Two,” he murmured, touching the appropriate button, and the zero was transformed miraculously into 2. “Plus three—equals five.” And the green 5 was there ahead of him.
Brother Paul smiled. He liked this little machine; it might not rival the Colony computer, but it did its limited job well. “Let’s remember that,” he said, punching the MEMORY button, then the PLUS button. That should file the number in the memory as a positive integer. Now he touched the CLEAR ENTRY button, and the cheerful zero reappeared, as green as ever. He punched MEMORY and RECALL and the 5 returned. Good; the memory was functioning properly.
“Let’s convert it from kilograms to pounds,” he continued, for this was an old conversions calculator complete with the archaic measurements, as befitted the date of its origin. He touched the CONVERSIONS button, then the MINUS button, which was now understood to represent kilograms. Then the DIVIDE button, which was now pounds. These double designations were initially confusing, but necessary to make twenty buttons do the work of fifty. The answer: 11.023113.
“File that useless information in Memory Two,” he said, punching MEMORY again, followed by 2, followed by PLUS, followed by CLEAR ENTRY. The readout returned to zero. Oh, he had forgotten what fun this was! “Now the number 99999999 multiplied by the number in Memory One.” He punched a row of eight nines, then TIMES, then MEMORY, 1, RECALL, then EQUALS. He frowned.
A red dot had appeared in the left-hand corner of the readout. “Overload,” he said. “No room for a nine-digit number! Clear it out.” He struck the CLEAR button several times, then turned off the calculator so as not to waste battery power while he thought.
“Very well, he said after a moment. “Let’s keep it within bounds. Multiply Memory One by Memory Two.” He turned it on again and punched the necessary sequence rapidly. All he got were zeroes. “Oh, I forgot! Turning it off erases the memory! I’ll have to start over.” He punched in a new 5, put it in Memory One, converted it from kilos to pounds, put that into Memory Two, cleared the readout, forgot what he was doing, and punched for Memory Two Recall. The result was zero.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. He went through the sequence again, watching his fingers move fleetingly over the keys—and saw his error. He had missed the 2 button for Memory Two and hit the TIMES button instead. “Can’t put it in TIMES MEMORY!” he said. “That would mean I’d have to punch MEMORY TIMES RECALL to get it out, and the poor machine would think I’d gone crazy and have to flash overload lights at me to jog me out of it.” As he spoke, he punched the foolish sequence he had named. The readout showed 11.023113.
Brother Paul stared at that. Then he erased the sequence and went through it all again, carefully punching the erroneous TIMES MEMORY, which was not supposed to exist. The same thing happened: he got the number back. “But that means this thing has a third memory—and it’s only built for two,” he said.
So he tested it methodically, for there was nothing so intriguing to him as a good mystery or paradox. He punched the number 111 into Memory One, 222 into Memory Two, and 333 into MEMORY TIMES. Then he punched out each in turn. Up they came, like the chosen cards of a sleight-of-hand magician: 111— 222—0.
“Zero!” he exclaimed. “So it isn’t true!” But just to be certain, he repeated the process, this time checking TIMES MEMORY first—and the 333 appeared. He checked for the 222 and found it, and then the 111—and it was there too. No doubt about it; he now had three memories. But the third one was intermittent, following some law of its own, as though it were half wild.
“Half wild…” he repeated aloud, thinking of something else. But if he got off on that, he would not solve the present mystery. He glanced at his watch. He had really gobbled up time with his
Brother Paul smiled. He liked this little machine; it might not rival the Colony computer, but it did its limited job well. “Let’s remember that,” he said, punching the MEMORY button, then the PLUS button. That should file the number in the memory as a positive integer. Now he touched the CLEAR ENTRY button, and the cheerful zero reappeared, as green as ever. He punched MEMORY and RECALL and the 5 returned. Good; the memory was functioning properly.
“Let’s convert it from kilograms to pounds,” he continued, for this was an old conversions calculator complete with the archaic measurements, as befitted the date of its origin. He touched the CONVERSIONS button, then the MINUS button, which was now understood to represent kilograms. Then the DIVIDE button, which was now pounds. These double designations were initially confusing, but necessary to make twenty buttons do the work of fifty. The answer: 11.023113.
“File that useless information in Memory Two,” he said, punching MEMORY again, followed by 2, followed by PLUS, followed by CLEAR ENTRY. The readout returned to zero. Oh, he had forgotten what fun this was! “Now the number 99999999 multiplied by the number in Memory One.” He punched a row of eight nines, then TIMES, then MEMORY, 1, RECALL, then EQUALS. He frowned.
A red dot had appeared in the left-hand corner of the readout. “Overload,” he said. “No room for a nine-digit number! Clear it out.” He struck the CLEAR button several times, then turned off the calculator so as not to waste battery power while he thought.
“Very well, he said after a moment. “Let’s keep it within bounds. Multiply Memory One by Memory Two.” He turned it on again and punched the necessary sequence rapidly. All he got were zeroes. “Oh, I forgot! Turning it off erases the memory! I’ll have to start over.” He punched in a new 5, put it in Memory One, converted it from kilos to pounds, put that into Memory Two, cleared the readout, forgot what he was doing, and punched for Memory Two Recall. The result was zero.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. He went through the sequence again, watching his fingers move fleetingly over the keys—and saw his error. He had missed the 2 button for Memory Two and hit the TIMES button instead. “Can’t put it in TIMES MEMORY!” he said. “That would mean I’d have to punch MEMORY TIMES RECALL to get it out, and the poor machine would think I’d gone crazy and have to flash overload lights at me to jog me out of it.” As he spoke, he punched the foolish sequence he had named. The readout showed 11.023113.
Brother Paul stared at that. Then he erased the sequence and went through it all again, carefully punching the erroneous TIMES MEMORY, which was not supposed to exist. The same thing happened: he got the number back. “But that means this thing has a third memory—and it’s only built for two,” he said.
So he tested it methodically, for there was nothing so intriguing to him as a good mystery or paradox. He punched the number 111 into Memory One, 222 into Memory Two, and 333 into MEMORY TIMES. Then he punched out each in turn. Up they came, like the chosen cards of a sleight-of-hand magician: 111— 222—0.
“Zero!” he exclaimed. “So it isn’t true!” But just to be certain, he repeated the process, this time checking TIMES MEMORY first—and the 333 appeared. He checked for the 222 and found it, and then the 111—and it was there too. No doubt about it; he now had three memories. But the third one was intermittent, following some law of its own, as though it were half wild.
“Half wild…” he repeated aloud, thinking of something else. But if he got off on that, he would not solve the present mystery. He glanced at his watch. He had really gobbled up time with his
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