adding machine

Blaise Pascal's Pascaline

Since we only have 10 fingers to count on, eventually someone had to come up with the idea of an adding machine. One of the first of these was developed by Blaise Pascal in 1642. It had eight digits and was called the pascaline. On this date in 1887, Dorr Felt received a patent for his comptometer. It was the first mechanical device that could add, subtract, multiply and divide simply by pressing keys. Since all the keys could be pressed simultaneously, a skilled operator could make the comptometer work faster than one of today's calculators.

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From our Archives: Today's Highlights, October 11, 2007