Big sum for medieval calculator

An astrolabe quadrant, a forerunner of the pocket calculator, is expected to fetch up to Pounds 100,000 at auction.

The brass instrument, made in England in 1388, was used for telling the time, surveying, mapping the stars and making calculations. It is one of only eight known examples and was found during building work at a restaurant in a medieval building in Canterbury, Kent, in 2005. It will be sold by Bonhams in Knightsbridge, London, on March 21.

(The Times of London - 15 February 2007)