Key Points
- A mathematician and inventor designed his first computing machine.Charles-Xavier Thomas de Colmar (1785-1870) conceived the idea of the arthrometer.In 1840, Thomas Fowler, an English businessman, self-taught mathematician and inventor, created a calculating machine.
Abraham Jakub Stern
Around 1810, the Galician Jew Abraham Jakub Stern (1768-1842), a remarkable mathematician, inventor, translator, and censor, designed his first computing machine. In 1811 he sent a report to his patron Stanisław Staszic (1755-1826), outlining the device and asking for financial help, and the device was first presented to the public..
Thomas De Colmar
The first calculating machine put in serial production was the Arithmomètre (arithmometer) of the French entrepreneur Charles-Xavier Thomas de Colmar (1785-1870). Colmar conceived the idea of the arthrometer during his lengthy stay with the armies of Marchall Soult, where he needed to perform a lot of calculations. This became even..
James White
In 1822, James White, an English civil engineer and prolific inventor, published a very interesting 394-pages book with the long name A New Century of Inventions: Being Designs and Descriptions of One Hundred Machines, Relating to Arts, Manufactures, and Domestic Life. Remarkably, between the 100 machines, described by White, there..
Luigi Torchi
The machine of the Italian Luigi Torchi from Milan was the first full-keyboard/direct multiplication machine in the world, moreover it was first practical keyboard calculator, as the earlier key-driven adding machine, described by the English engineer James White, seems to remain only on paper. Some 40 years will be needed for..
Thomas Fowler
In 1840, Thomas Fowler, an English businessman, self-taught mathematician and inventor, created a unique ternary calculating machine in his workshop in Great Torrington, a small market town in the north of Devon, England. In 1842 Fowler devised a greatly improved model, which was exhibited in the museum of King’s College..
David Roth
David Roth (1808-1885) was an Austrian Jew and Parisian doctor, who around 1840 turned his attention to the design and construction of mechanical calculators. Between 1840 and 1844, Roth registered six patents (totaling 72 pages), as the first patent was registered in May 1840, the last in March 1844. At..
Chaim Zelig Slonimski
Francis Marston
In 1842 a certain Francis Marston of Aston, Parish of Hopesay, County of Salop, England, obtained a Letters Patent №9235 for Apparatus for Making Calculations. No details are known about this machine, most probably it remained only on paper. The device of Marston combines two columns of figures arranged in..
Maurel And Jayet
In 1841 in Paris the young French student Timoléon-Louis Maurel (1819-1879) (later a good French clock-maker and inventor) devised and in the next 1842 obtained a patent for 15 years (see the patent No. FR14529 from 18 November 1842) for his first calculating machine for multiplication and division, which certainly..
Jean-Paul Garnier
In middle 1843 the brilliant French mechanic and watchmaker Jean-Paul Garnier (best known for providing railway stations in France and Romania with station clocks), filed a patent application to Department of Agriculture and Commerce for mechanical calculating machine (France was one of the first major industrialized countries to adopt a..
Jean-Baptiste Schwilgue
In 1844 the French engineer Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué from Strasbourg, together with his son Charles-Maximilien, patented a key-driven calculating machine, which seems to be the third key-driven machine in the world, after these of James White and Luigi Torchi, but was certainly the first popular keyboard calculator. Similar machines will be..
Izrael Staffel
Around 1835 the young Warsaw watchmaker ans inventor Izrael Abraham Staffel (1814-1885) commenced building in his workshop at Marszałkowska str. 125 an advanced first calculating machine, spending his meager funds. It took him ten years to finish the device, which was demonstrated to the public as late as in 1845…
Heinrich Kummer
Several people experimented with versions of simple mechanical calculators, that included strips of metal with numbers marked on them mounted in a frame, where a stylus was used to slide these strips up and down. Let’s mention only Claude Perrault, who invented the first form of this class of devices..
Jan Józef Baranowski
The Polish economist, financier, linguist, engineer and inventor Jan Józef Baranowski was the author of many technical inventions, 17 of which have been patented in France. Interestingly, at least four of them are for calculating devices: 1. Machine for obtaining the products of numbers without multiplying (Brevet №4587 from 1846..
Victor Schilt
The calculating machine of the Swiss clock-maker Victor (or Viktor) Schilt (1822-1880) was exhibited in 1851 at the Great exposition of the works of industry of all nations in Crystal Palace, London, and received an honorable mention and a bronze medal, placed after the calculating machines of Izrael Staffel and..
Dubois D. Parmelee
In 1850 Dubois D. Parmelee, a 20-year-old student at New Paltz Academy (later State University of New York), patented a calculator, which seems to be the fourth key-driven adding machine in the world (after the machines of James White, Luigi Torchi, and Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué), thus putting the foundation of the..
John Nystrom
The Swedish born, American civil engineer, inventor, and author John William Nystrom (1825–1885) (born as Johan Vilhelm Nyström) is known as the author of many books and inventions, between them an interesting calculating device (a slide rule, type of mechanical analog computer), invented in 1848 and patented on 3 March..
Ernest-Narcisse Lobbé
In early 1850s a certain Ernest-Narcisse Lobbé, a Parisian horloger-mécanicien (watchmaker and mechanic), created one of the first keyboard calculating machines in the world (after the machines of James White, Luigi Torchi, Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué, and Dubois Parmelee). The machine (so called Additionneur mécanique à touches) was patented in 1855 (French..
Tito Gonnella
The Italian physicist, mathematician, and inventor Tito Gonnella (1794–1867), professor of mathematics and mechanics at the Florentine Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, is primarily known as the inventor (in 1824) of one of the first planimeters (an instrument for measuring the area, enclosed by an irregular closed curve) in..
Orlando Lane Castle
On 24 November 1857, Orlando Lane Castle (1822-1892), a professor of Latin, Oratory, Rhetoric, and Belles-Lettres at the Shurtleff College in Alton, Illinois, received a patent for a calculating machine, called Improved arithmometer for adding (see US pat. №18675) of very interesting design, operated by a clock spring, wound manually…
Thomas Hill
The improved arithmometer of the Reverend Thomas Hill (1818-1891), a Unitarian clergyman in Waltham, Massachusetts (later he became a famous scientist, educator, President of Harvard University and one of the most profound yet brilliant mathematicians in the USA), was the first key-driven calculating machine, made in the United States, which..
Niccola Guinigi
In 1850s (or even earlier) Count Niccola Guinigi-Magrini, a nobleman from Lucca, Italy, designed and made a simple dial adder (which he called Manipolatore Aritmetico—Arithmetical Manipulator) with a unique design that summed eight-digit figures up to 99,999,999. Now the only survived device is exposed in Arithmeum Museum, Bonn, Germany (see..
John Ballou
Dr. John Ballou Newbrough (1828-1891), a 33rd degree Mason, clairvoyant, vegetarian, and an avid student of the world’s religions, called by some people America’s Greatest Prophet, was an inventive man and a holder of numerous US patents, between them three patents for calculation devices. First patent he took out in..
Caroline Winter
On 12 April 1859, a certain mysterious person, named C. Winter, of Piqua, from county of Miami and State of Ohio, received the 3-pages US patent №23637 for Improved Adding-Machine, which was the fourth in the USA keyboard adder, after the machines of Parmelee, Castle and Nutz, and seventh in..
John Campbell
On 9 August 1859, the young carpenter, student, and teacher from Rockville, county of Parke, Indiana, named John Tenbrook Campbell (1833-1911), obtained a patent for a simple five-positional adding device (so called Addition Machine), similar to these of the earlier French inventors Jean Lépine, and Hillerin de Boistissandeau from 1720s…
Thomas Strode
Thomas Strode (1810–1880), a storekeeper and farmer from Coatesville, Chester county, Pennsylvania, was a holder of three patents for calculating devices: US patent №30264 from 1860 for an adding machine (calculator), similar to Calculating Clock of Schickard and Pascaline of Blaise Pascal, and two patents for circular stylus-operated adding machines..
Joseph Alexander
In the beginning of 1860s Dr. Joseph Bell Alexander (1821-1871) of Baltimore, Maryland, devised a rather interesting calculating machine, and on 15 March 1864, took out US Patent №41898 for it. It seems the machine never went into production and only the Patent Office model survived to the present (kept..
Charles Webb
The American poet, author and journalist Charles Henry Webb (1834–1905) from New York was a holder of several patents for calculating devices. First was the USA patent №75322 from 10 March 1868, for an adding-machine. Later (in November, 1889) he took out two other patents for improved version of the..
John Groesbeck
In the end of 1860s, John Groesbeck (1833-1884), a consulting accountant from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and many years a teacher and principal of Crittenden’s Philadelphia Commercial College, devised a simple adding machine, for which he took out a US patent №100288 on 1 March 1870. The machine went in serial production..
Axel Petersson
The Swedish-Norwegian engineer Axel Jacob Petersson (1834-1884), was a universal inventor and is famous with several books and articles, and the construction of railways and viaducts, including the famous railway bridge Järnvägsbron i Minnesund, steam engines, a rotating camera for photography, military equipment like a bayonet and a repeating rifle,…
George Grant
The American engineer and entrepreneur George Barnard Grant (1849-1917) is a notable figure in the world of mechanical calculator. He was the creator of several all-purpose calculators, but also of a magnificent Difference Engine. As a whole, Grant devised four different calculating machines: three all-purpose calculators, and a sophisticated machine..
Edmund Barbour
Edmund Dana Barbour (1841-1925), a businessman, philanthropist, and genealogist from Boston, Massachusetts, is a remarkable figure in the world of mechanical calculators. In 1872, he took out two very interesting US patents for calculating devices (U.S. patents №130404 and №133188), describing a machine, which seems to be the first representative..
Frank Baldwin
Frank Stephen Baldwin (1838-1925), native of Connecticut, devoted almost all his life to inventing and manufacturing machines. He applied for his first patent in 1855, only 17 years old, and took out numerous patents in the next several decades. In the beginning of 1870s, while visiting the office of a..
Willgodt Odhner
There are a few legends about how the young Swedish engineer Willgodt Odhner (1845-1905) became interested in calculating machines in the beginning of 1870s. However, there are two stories about that told by Odhner himself. First of them is, that as a quite young engineer Odhner had in 1871 an..
Pafnuty Chebyshev
Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev (Пафнутий Львович Чебышёв) (1821-1894) was a prominent Russian mathematician, who is considered to be a founding father of Russian mathematics. Besides the mathematics, Chebyshev spent much of his time working on questions of mechanical engineering and in early 1870s he designed and manufactured very interesting calculating machines…
Henry Pottin
In the middle 1870s the French engineer Henry Pottin patented the first key-set crank operated machine and made first attempt to record the items in addition. The invention of Pottin implemented two of the prime principles of the first workable recording-adders; one is the depressable key-set feature and the other..
Marshall Cram
On 7 August 1877, a certain Marshall M. Cram of Mankato, Minnesota, received a United States Patent Nr. 193853 for an adding machine, similar to the later Centigraph of Arthur Shattuck (in contrast with Centigraph however, the device of Cram remained only on paper and never went in serial production)…
Louis Troncet
After the slide adders of Claude Perrault, César Caze, and Heinrich Kummer, in 1889 the French teacher, school director, inventor, scientist, and writer Louis-Joseph Troncet (1850-1920), created his version of this type of calculator, which he called Arithmographe. Troncet’s invention became so popular that the term “Troncet-type” is often used..
Ramón Verea
In 1878 Ramón Silvestre Verea García (1833-1899), a Spaniard, newspaper publisher in New York, patented a direct-multiplying calculating machine, which seems to be the second patented machine of this type in the world (after the machine of Edmund Barbour), ten years before the first popular direct-multiplying machine of León Bollée…
Juri Diakov
Around 1874, the Russian military engineer from Sankt Peterburg, captain Juri I. Diakov (Юрiй И. Дьяковъ), devised a simple row adder, one of many adding devices based on Abaque Rhabdologique of Claude Perrault. However, unlike the abacus of Perrault, the device of Diakov used endless bands, moved during the calculations..
Charles Pidgin
The US statistician, romance novelist and amateur engineer Charles Felton Pidgin (1844-1923) from Boston, Massachusetts, was a holder of quite a few patents (at least ten) for various devices, like indicator, apparatus for compiling statistic (Pidgin’s system for census, the so called “chip” system, in late 1880s was the main..
Eduard Selling
In April 1886, Eduard Selling, a professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Würzburg, Germany, received a patent for a calculating machine with very interesting construction. The driving force behind this invention was (as usually) the personal need for a better calculating tool. It’s known that since 1877..
Lawrence Swem
On 8 June 1886, Lawrence Wilson Swem (1856-1917), a jeweler of West Liberty, Muscatine, Iowa, patented a simple keyboard adding machine (US patent 343506), somewhat similar to the earlier adder of Marshall Cram from 1877 and very similar to the later adding machine Centigrpah of Arthur Shattuck from 1886 and..
Brainard Smith
In May and June 1886, Brainard Fowler Smith, a merchant from Sacramento, California, filed applications of two patents for keyboard driven adding machines. The patents (US360118 and US363972) had been granted next year (March and May 1887), as the second patent (US363972) was granted to Brainard Smith and Arthur Shattuck, and..
Arthur Shattuck
In the beginning of 1880s, the young county and court clerk of Sonoma, California, Arthur Ewing Shattuck (1854-1932), driven by the need to facilitate the tedious office calculation work, designed his first calculating device, which he patented in 1882. Later Shattuck became a holder of totally five (four US and..
Melvin Lovell
Starting from 1869, the young carpenter by trade, Melvin Newton Lovell (1844-1895) from Erie, Pennsylvania, later a wooden-ware manufacturer and successful businessman, received numerous patents for various devices, between them several patents for adding machines (cash registers). Lovell’s first patent for cash indicating, registering, and accounting machine (US patent Nr…
Horace Hicks
On 6 November 1894, Horace David Hicks, an employee of Brown’s Lumber Company, Whitefield, New Hampshire, USA, got a patent (US patent 528596, assigned one-half to Brown’s Lumber Company) for adding machine with very interesting construction. Certainly, the adding device of Hicks remained only on paper and never went in..
James Bassett
In 1909 the young inventor James Hunter Bassett (1888–1932) from Chicago, Illinois, started the production of adding device, quite similar in construction to the earlier Ribbon Adder of Charles Webb. In contrast with Ribbon Adder however, the device of Bassett (called Bassett Adder) had much better market success (at the..
Reynold Johnson
Reynold B. Johnson (1906–1998) was a remarkable American inventor, one of the IBM company’s most prolific inventors, specializing in electromechanical devices. He was an owner of more than 90 patents, and is said to be the “father” of the hard disk drive, automatic test scoring equipment, microphonograph technology, a type..
Jorge Luis Borges
In 1939 the famous Argentine writer and librarian Jorge Luis Borges published in Buenos Aires an essay entitled La bibliotheca total (The Total Library), describing his fantasy of an all-encompassing archive or universal library. A universal library is supposed to contain all existing information, all books, all works (regardless of..
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