'Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin all complained about the time they had to waste doing simple arithmetic. Foolscap covered with numbers obscured answers; elegant equations led to numerical drudgery. Oh, for a pocket calculator that could add, subtract, multiply and divide! One with digital readouts and memory. A simple, finger-friendly interface. But none were available until 1947. Then, for a quarter of a century, the finest pocket calculators came from Liechtenstein. In this diminutive land of Alpine scenery and tax shelters, Curt Herzstark built the most ingenious calculating machine ever to grace an engineer's hand: the Curta calculator.'