Adding MachinesStylus-Operated Adding Machines
In 1642, while he was still a teenager, the Frenchman Blaise Pascal invented one of the first machines that could add automatically. Numbers were entered by rotating wheels with a pointed rod or stylus. Carrying took place through the fall of a weight. Some fifty copies of Pascal’s machine were made in his lifetime, mainly for the cabinets of curiosity of well-to-do nobles. In the eighteenth century, similar machines were made, such as one build by Jean Lepine, clockmaker and mechanician to French King Louis XV. In Lepine’s elegant brass machine, carrying took place through the flex of a spring, not the fall of a weight.
In the second half of the 19th century, a variety of much humbler stylus-operated adding machines were patented in the United States. At least three of them went on the market. Two, based on inventions of John Groesbeck and of A. M. Stephenson, had modest sales. The third, invented by journalist Charles H. Webb and sold as the Webb adder, was a sufficient commercial success to boast distinct models, patented in 1868 and 1889.
A.M. Stephenson described a small adding machine with several dials, but only sold one that handled two digits. In the 1840s the Frenchman Didier Roth had designed an improved stylus-operated adding machine that was small and light weight, but had several dials. Roth did not sell his machines successfully, but in the early 20th century such instruments became quite common. One of the first to sell widely in the U.S. was the Calcumeter, patented by James J. Walsh of New Jersey in 1901. Similar instruments, made from metal or later plastic, would sell into the 1970s.
Other small adding machines had parallel rods or chains that moved either crosswise or from top to bottom. Some of these looked quite a bit like contemporary adders, although they had a mechanical carry.
"Adding Machines - Stylus-Operated Adding Machines" showing 1 items.
- This U.S. Patent Office model has five continuous metal bands that move in slots across a wooden frame. Flat pieces of brass cover the top of the frame on the right and the left, keeping the bands in their slots. The bands are made up of small flat squares of metal, with nine squares silver-colored and the tenth one brass. Each square has a hole at the center for a stylus. Strips of paper attached between the bands have the numbers from 1 to 9. Moving a band to the right turns a wheel clockwise. The edge of this wheel, which is covered around the edge with a paper marked with the digits from 0 to 9, is visible through a window in the right piece of brass. The number shown increases as the wheel turns. A lever on the left side disengages the fourth and fifth columns. According to the patent description, there is a carry mechanism activated when a wheel passes 9.
- The machine is marked on the left top: Computing (/) Machine (/) A.W. Davies.
- Cleveland city directories list an Alexander W. Davies who worked off and on as a clerk, car agent, and accountant for several railroads between 1863 and 1900. It is probable that he took out two patents in 1891 for inventions relating to recording the mileage traveled by railroad cars. Railroad companies would soon become major users of business machines, including IBM tabulating equipment.
- References: A. W. Davies, “Improvement in Computing Machines,” U.S. Patent 65,883, June 18, 1867.
- Charles C. Gale, Royal Cowles, and Alexander W. Davies, “Car Mileage Report,” U.S. Patent 455197, June 30, 1891.
- Charles C. Gale, Royal Cowles, and Alexander W. Davies, “Car Mileage Register,” U.S. Patent 456650, July 28, 1891.
- Currently not on view
- date made
- Davies, A. W.
- Davies, A. W.
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- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center