Adding Machine

The adding machine is a mathematical tool that supported addition and multiplication.

Blaise Pascal was the inventor of this tool. It was created in 1642. It was designed to help his father count taxes and was called the pascaline.

The calculator is the new version of the adding machine. It is handheld and portable. in 1966. it was invented at the Texas Instruments, Incorporated by a development team which included Jerry D. Merryman, James H. Van Tassel and Jack St. Clair Kilby.

The machine is in a form of a brass box and has a comparable size as to a computer keyboard. When a gear with ten teeth would rotate once, a second gear would shift one tooth until it rotated ten times(hundreds) then it shifts into another gear (thousands) etc.

Many versions of the adding machine have been developed later on by other inventors. New functions have been added like keys. In 1967, the first hand held calculator was invented. New solving methods like divide and using fractions had been added. The adding machine has had the same purpose throughout the years.

https://www.thocp.net/hardware/pascaline.htm

http://therese.eveilleau.pagesperso-orange.fr/pages/truc_mat/textes/pascaline.htm#haut

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/calculator_time-line.html

• Ellenberger, Michel; Collin, Marie–Marthe (1993). La machine à calculer de Blaise Pascal (in French). Paris: Nathan.