The first real adding machine: the Pascaline (1647) invented by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal. A series of stylus-operated wheels bearing numbers from 0 to 9 are so geared that each wheel advances one number when the wheel to the right completed a full revolution. Thus, both addition and substraction are possible.
Very early mechanical calculator (1676) constructed by the German mathematician Von Leibniz. The machine has two essential elements. The first a collection of pin-wheels arranged for adding and the second a new feature of stepped cog-wheels movable as to allow any number of teeth from 1 to 9 to engage with the adding section.
The first machine to perform multiplication by a direct method was invented by Leon Bollee in 1887. The essential feature of this machine was a many-tongued plate, constituting in relief the ordinary multiplication table of Pythagoras. Though excellent in action, only a few of the machines were sold, owing partly to the high price.
Between 1850 and 1887 many attempts were made to develop a calculating machine that would use keys as means to enter data. In Europe, key-driven machines were made by many manufacturers. The adding machine of T. Hill (1857) is a thin wooden machine. Here a replica of one of the first prototypes. The machine had slow carry mechanisms and lacked an efficient way to control the momentum applied to the wheels by the key action.
In 1853 the Swedish contructors George Scheutz and his son Edvard built the first working difference engine which was partly inspired by Babbage's difference engine.The Scheutz calculator was also the first calculator with printing capabilities. Due to their automatic sequential approach, difference engines are considered to be the precursors of the modern programmable computing machines.
Arthur Burkhardt founded the German calculating machine industry in 1878. The Saxonia was one of 14 calculating machines introduced in Europe and America between 1895 and 1913. Utilizing the stepped-reckoner principle of the Thomas de Colmar Arithmometer, the Saxonia was a commercial calculator with addition and multiplication capabilities.
Analogous rotating slide rules and digital calculating machine (1881) designed by E. Thacher. It consists of a cylindrical drum which admits of both rotary and longitudinal movement within an open metallic framework of 20 equidistant triangular bars.
This calculating machine or 'clock' (1623) is the first known mechanical calculator to add, subtract, multiply and divide. It was invented by the German math professor Wilhelm Schickard in Tübingen. It remained unknown for 250 years. In 1860 it was reconstructed by Baron Bruno von Freytag-Löringhoff. Although the calculating machine was destroyed in a fire and never rebuilt, it has been reconstructed from sketches and drawings from the astronomer Johannes Keppler.
Samuel Morland's calculator (1664). The machine consists of a gilt brass plate carrying 55 numbered silver circles and 17 numbered silvered brass circles. It is housed in a wooden case with a crystal lid. It seems that the design was inspired by Napier's rods. The rods are inscribed on brass circles and these can be turned, via a crank, to show the products through a series of window-like displays.
