Category: Timeline Stories

On 1 October 1903, the company Adix Company Pallweber & Bordt of Mannheim, Germany, was entered into the commercial register, for the production of calculating machines. The sole shareholders were Josef Pallweber (1858-1921), a famous Austrian/German engineer, equipment manufacturer, and inventor, and Adolf Bordt (1875-1940), an owner of a business for office machines and furniture.

Josef Pallweber obviously was the engineering force behind the project, while Bordt was the organizational and financial force. Pallweber left the company five years later, in October 1908, while Bordt remained as the sole owner until the middle 1920s.

The first patent of the Adix adder is the German patent №DE173286 from 11 Dec 1904 (see the nearby drawing), granted to Josef Pallweber, known mainly as the inventor of the so-called jump hour watch (first digital watch). From 1883 until 1927, Pallweber was a holder of many patents in several countries for clock devices and for several calculating machines and cash registers. Later Adix was patented in Austria, France, Switzerland, Great Britain, Canada, France, and the USA—see the US patent).

The device was in production from 1904 till 1930 by the Adix Company, Mannheim, Germany, as the 1904 price was 15 marks (the typical daily wage in Germany in 1913 was between 3 and 6 marks). By 1908 the price had risen to 30 marks, and it was proudly announced that 25000 examples had been sold. Adix was advertised in many European magazines as “Invaluable in the office”, “The best present to give to a lady”, and “A child can use it”. Improved versions of the device were manufactured also under other names, e.g. Diera (since 1911) and Kuli (since 1913). Bordt later started the production of full-keyboard adding machines—Bordt (1908) and ADMA (1919). Except for Adix, all of his machines did not achieve market success.

The Adix (see the nearby image) is a click wheel column adder with nine keys, using the so-called Schaltklinke (switching latch, or switching pawl, described first time by Jacob Leupold in 1727) based calculation mechanism. It has overall dimensions (without box): 15 x 10 x 3 cm and weight: 0.5 kg and was sold in a beautiful grained leather brown wooden box. The calculator consists of 122 parts and for the first time in a computing machine have been used parts made of aluminum.

The whole mechanism lies exposed so that the operator may clearly see how the key depression is transmitted to the counting mechanism. Addition occurs by key depression, but the machine does not permit the addition of whole amounts, it merely permits additions of columns of individual digits to the extent to which they do not exceed a total sum of 999. If the calculation in one column has been completed, the operator makes a note of the last digit and registers the carryover by means of the keys.

The cutout under each key has a different slope, so the plate gets pushed at a distance proportional to the number keyed in. The plate in turn pushes the wire rod, which rotates the crank arm through an angle proportional to the key’s number. The crank is loosely coupled to the large brass cogwheel, but this stays put because of the ratchet action of the spring. Then, when the key is released and the rod and crank move back, the cogwheel does turn with the crank, and in doing so increments the units gear of the result readout. Carrying from units to tens and so on happens through the gearing you’d expect.

From the patents, it appears that the key selling point of Adix was that it was noiseless. As the inventor mentioned in the patent:
It is, however, important for all these (adding) machines to work silently, because any noise would disturb the operator and others working in the same room; but up to the present it has been impossible to avoid this inconvenience, because of the stop-pawls operating the sets of wheels, which when pressed against the teeth by means of springs produce a rattle upon the return motion. When the return motion is limited by a stop, a violent shock takes place at each operation, accompanied by a noise which has a tendency to cause the premature deterioration and putting out of order of the entire mechanism.

In essence, Adix was a very beautiful device and a fine piece of workmanship, but with little practical usefulness, due to its limited capacity.

In the nearby image, you can see the improved version of Adix, called Kuli (pen), which was in production by Adix Company Pallweber & Bordt from 1913 until 1919. Kuli was the culmination of that series of simple, small adding machines with a direct display.

The dimensions of the device (with box) are: 8 x 23 x 10 cm, weight: 1.3 kg. Not only can additions be carried out with it in a particularly convenient way: after adding a row, you only need to press a special key to start the next row of numbers; the total remains in the machine up to a 12-digit result, whereby the carriage with the counter is shifted to the desired higher decimal by pressing a button. Multiplications with up to 5-digit numbers are also possible, although with manual operations. The price was originally 60, then 75 marks.

Biography of Josef Pallweber and Adolf Bordt

Josef (a.k.a. Joseph) Benedikt Pallweber was born on 7 February 1858, in Schörfling am Attersee bei Vöcklabruck, a village between Salzburg and Linz, in Upper Austria. He was the son of the local locksmith Ernst Pallweber. In the nearby image, you can see a photo from 1910 of the hardware store Nieberlein on the market square of Schörfling (Gmundnerstraße 2, formerly Schörfling 72), a traditional shop that grew out of the locksmith’s shop of Ernst Pallweber, who bought the house in 1856 and lived there with his family until 1877, so most probably Josef Pallweber was born in this house.

As young Josef Pallweber spent some time in Switzerland, studying the watchmaking trade, but around 1880 returned to Austria. Until 1886 he worked as a watchmaker in Salzburg. In this period Pallweber became known for his patent from 1883 for the jump number watch, which was essentially the first digital watch in the world (patented in Germany and Great Britain in 1883, and in the USA in 1885). Since Pallweber granted licenses to the watch factories IWC Schaffhausen and Cortébert Watch, among others, which produced a great number of these watches between 1885 and 1910 (e.g. IWC produced some 20000 pieces), the name Pallweber watch became a synonym for jump number watches.

In 1886 Pallweber moved to Mannheim, Germany. There on 16 August 1886, he married Lina (Magdalena) Mack (1862—10 Oct 1931). Around 1890 they moved to Furtwangen, then to Frankfurt am Main. The Pallweber couple moved back to Mannheim on 10 March 1903 after a short stopover in Baden-Baden.

From the middle of the 1890s until approx. 1902 Pallweber worked at the Frankfurter Fabrik Mechanischer Apparate in Frankfurt. There he worked among other things on the construction of a “clock with convertible digits”, a cash register/adding machine (US patents Nr. 630922 from 1899 and 648126 from 1900), and a printing full-keyboard adding machine (German patent №131337 from 1900).

On 1 October 1903, the company Adix Company Pallweber & Bordt of Mannheim, Germany, was entered into the commercial register, for the production of calculating machines. The sole shareholders were Pallweber and Bordt. On 1 October 1908, Pallweber left the company, and Bordt became sole proprietor.

After leaving the Adix Company in 1908, Pallweber established a company for technical inventions and patented an “alarm device for portable cassettes and similar containers”. By 1911, his patents shift focus to alarmed portable cash boxes, and we can only assume that he succeeded in making a living from those as well.

Josef Pallweber died on 28 January 1921, in Mannheim, shortly before his 63-rd birthday.

***

Adolf Hermann Bordt was born on 28 July 1875, in Karlsruhe. He moved from there to Mannheim on 11 June 1901 and initially lived in various pensions. Soon he founded a business for office machines and furniture—Bordt, Adolf (Oliver typewriter, office furniture, Stolzenberg system, computer innovations).

Adolf Bordt remained active in the calculating machines production business from 1903 until the early 1930s. Unfortunately, after the initial success of Adix and leaving of Pallweber in 1908, he faced up to several business failures with other calculating machines (Bordt, 1908; Diera, 1911; Kuli, 1913; Adma, 1919; Certa, 1928; Andie, 1930), as all of these machines are based on Pallweber patents.

Bordt married Albertine Berta Földner (born on 22 March 1880 in Mannheim) on 28 May 1904. Her parents came from Leipzig-Gohlis and moved to Mannheim in 1879. The Bordt couple lived in Mannheim until 6 February 1919, when they moved to Leipzig-Gohlis, the place of origin of the in-laws.

In the early 1930s, Bordt had some legal problems and even spent some time (1 year, 1933-34) in a prison. On 17 November 1936, Bordt married again to Charlotte Gertrud Meissner, born in 1899 in Thale, Harz region.

Adolf Bordt died on 31 August 1940 at the age of 65.

On 24 July 1877, one O. Berndt of Nienburg, Germany, got a patentschrift (see German patent №81) for addirmaschine (adding machine) with an interesting construction. The keyboard adding machine of Berndt is one of the earliest developments of this type in Germany, and even though it never acquired any practical importance, it deserves our attention, because of its well-designed construction and the implementation of a unique operation principle—numeric keypad combined with automatic decade function.

The so-called decade function of this adding machine is a special feature. It has the effect that with the first keystroke the units, the second the tens, etc. can be added to a number. A counter shows how many decades of a number have already been entered. After entering the whole number, the operator can reset the decade function by pressing a key and then entering the next number.

The mechanics of the machine (see the lower patent drawing) consists of:
– Keypad with eleven keys
– Counter
– Drive mechanism between keys and counter
– Transfer of tens of the counter
– Automatic decade function

The device has eleven keys, ten of which serve for setting up the digits of the addends, and one for adding the set number to the result. In addition, the machine is first set to zero, which lowers the eleventh key (upper left key) to the bottom. The key for the first digit from the right is pushed (to enter the units digit) and this action raises the eleventh key by a small increment; then the second (tens) digit is set, which again raises the eleventh key, and so on. The eleventh key is raised ever higher as more digits are entered. After the total value has been set (maximum ten digits), the eleventh key is pressed down to add the set value to the ten-positional result mechanism. The second and subsequent amounts are added in the same manner. The machine is not provided with a zero setting, and the individual numeral drums must be successively adjusted to zero by the depression of the corresponding digital keys. There is no indication of an overflow of the result mechanism either.

Biography of O. Berndt

We are not sure who was the inventor of this adding machine. In fact, there was a very good German mechanical engineer from this time with the same name—Otto Berndt, but there are no records of whether he created such a device or even if he was in Nienburg in 1877. This man was Karl Ernst August Otto Berndt (born 29 Jan 1857 in Neuruppin, a small town in Brandenburg–died 9 Feb 1940 in Darmstadt).

Otto Berndt was the son of the leather merchant and engineer Ernst Berndt and his wife Wilhelmine Berndt, née Kufahl. From 1875 to 1881 he studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University Berlin-Charlottenburg. In 1881 he passed the first state examination and was appointed government building supervisor, the second state examination followed in 1884. From 1885 to 1887 Berndt was employed as a government builder (assessor in the public building administration) at the main railway workshop in Halberstadt. From 1887 to 1892 he worked in the mechanical engineering office of the Royal Railway Directorate in Magdeburg.

In 1892, Berndt was appointed as full professor for general mechanical engineering and mechanical technology at the Technical University of Darmstadt. His concern was to conduct research in addition to teaching. He expanded the fields of machine tools and power machines, steam boilers, and machine elements established before his appointment to include a chair for water power machines and later a chair for paper production. Berndt remained at the University of Darmstadt upon his retirement in 1927, serving as professor, dean, and rector for many years.

Friedrich Oskar Leuner (1845-1930), known as Oskar (or Oscar) Leuner, was a mechanical engineer from Dresden, who in 1870 established a workshop in his hometown. The workshop worked in the area of construction and manufacturing of scientific and technical instruments, mainly (since 1876) for Dresden Polytechnic College (Technischen Hochschule). Later Leuner’s workshop evolved into the Mechanische Institut of Oskar Leuner an der technischen Hochschule zu Dresden (see the nearby ad from 1907), which existed until the death of its founder.

In the middle of 1870s Leuner devised a small calculating instrument (so-called Addirstift—Adding Pencil), which he patented in 1877 (German patent DE2555 from 08.12.1877). The Addirstift of Leuner is similar to the earlier instrument for adding and registering numbers of Charles Corliss from 1868 and Adding Pencil of Marshal Smith (US patent Nr. 175775 and Nr. 180949 from 1876). The Addirstift of Leuner was produced in small series in his workshop, its price was 12 DM (as a comparison, the Adding Pencil of Smith was manufactured in St. Louis, and reportedly some 5000 units were sold, for 5 USD).

Let’s examine the adding instrument of Leuner, using the patent drawings (see below). Inside the circular sleeve (marked with h on the drawing) is mounted a steel axis (g), fixed to the ending thick pin (n) by means of a round plate (h₁). The pin is projecting from the front end of the device, limited by the plate (h₁), which is in contact with the conical base of the sleeve. The pin is inscribed (at equal intervals) with the digits 0 through 9.

On the other end of the sleeve is mounted a square box, which hosts three 10-teeth ratchet wheels mounted on steel axes together with buttons (a, b, and c) and digital wheels, which can be seen through the three windows (d, e, and f).

Pressing the pin pushes the axis g up according to the distance (and the digit, marked on the sleeve’s end). The rear end of the axis is firmly connected (by means of the teeth axis m) to the ratchet wheel of units (c). The axis g is fixed to a spring, which returns it to the initial position after releasing.

The device can be zeroed using buttons a, b, and c.

The tens carry mechanism is implemented using the three ratchet wheels (a’, b’, and c’), mounted on the same axes, as the main ratchet wheels, buttons (a, b, and c), and digital wheels. The wheel of units (c’) has only 1 tooth and is transferring the carry to the 10-teeth wheel of tens (b’), which is coupled with a 1-tooth wheel, used to transfer the carry to the 10-teeth wheel of hundreds (a’).

The digital capacity of the device is up to 999, but it can be easily extended, by mounting additional wheels in the square box.

The Parisian Casimir Louis Chambon was a holder of two French patents for table-based calculating devices—French patent Nr. 115319 from 3 Nov 1876 for Calculateur mécanique universel, and French patent Nr. 198553 from 28 May 1889 for Multiplicateur Diviseur, granted to his company—Société Chambon et Baye, représenté par Dumas. The calculators of Chambon had been produced and sold under different names in the late 1870s and 1880s by his company.

The Tachylemme of Chambon (introduced in 1880, see the nearby image), based on the second patent, is a specialized tabular calculator, showing the daily interest on sums of money at various rates. It doesn’t have a calculating mechanism, but is based on printed tables (it has 4 cylinder-based tables, 9 rows, 99 cells/cylinder, total cells 396).

The device was made of wood, paper, metal, and glass, with measurements: 175 x 100 x 35 mm, and a weight: of 410 g. It has four printed cylinders: 1-9; 10-90; 100-900; and 1000-9000 so arranged that percentages for every half percent from one to six percent can be read through slits. The total of say 6,216 at 4 percent could be figured by adding the sums shown in the four rows.

According to Maurice d’Ocagne:
This arrangement of numerical table on adjacent cylinders has the further advantage of being extendable to certain tables having three entries. It is clear that, if by some means the numbers read from the cylinders can be made to vary according to the values of a third entry, then a triple scale has been achieved. It is this idea that Mr. Chambon most ingeniously put into practice in his Calculateur d’intérêts, which gives the interest payable, for any number of days, on capital sums up to 99,999 Fr. at rates of 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, and 6%. The vertical columns of the table correspond to the first entry, the number of days. As in the Didelin device, the units, tens, . . . , tens of thousands are assigned to the various cylinders, on each of which an endless loop contains the nine lines corresponding to the second entry.
Although Chambon’s arrangement is most ingenious, and most appropriate to the particular application for which it was developed, it does not allow any great increase in the number of distinct values for the third entry; consequently, its use is rather limited.

Chambon also introduced similar calculators for the multiplication tables, based on the first patent, called Multiplicateur Enfantin (introduced 1878), an automatic calculator showing multiplication tables up to 50 times 28, and Tachypolyplasiasme (introduced 1884, showing multiplication tables up to 100 times 100).

The Multiplicateur Enfantin (see the nearby photo) is 18 cm long, by 3.5 cm wide, by 2 cm thick. The cylinders are less than 0.5 cm in diameter. The roll is on very fine rice paper. Two vertical slits, cut in the front of the box containing the cylinders, allow only two vertical columns of products to be visible at one time. To obtain the product of any number from 2 to 50 and any number from 2 to 28, the number to be multiplied is brought into one of the holes at the top of the apparatus. The left opening takes numbers from 2 to 25, and the right opening numbers from 26 to 50. The required product will then be found in one of the slits opposite the multiplier, which is in the vertical column between the slits.

Chambon’s Tachypolyplasiasme is a larger modification of the Multiplicateur Enfantin and gives the products of any number from 2 to 100 multiplied by any number within the same range. It won a medal at the Universal Exposition of 1878. The dimensions of the device are: 26 cm long, 4 cm wide, by 2 cm thick.

As a whole, not only tabular calculators of Chambon, but all such devices, used between about 1630 and the 1950s, had very limited success in terms of market penetration and hardly rate a footnote in the history of computing.

Biography of Casimir Louis Chambon

Almost nothing is known about Casimir Louis Chambon. Besides the above-mentioned two French patents from 1876 and 1889, we know that in 1879 he applied for a Great Britain patent for apparatus for ascertaining and indicating the number of days between two dates.

In fact, there is a very good French engineer-mechanic and entrepreneur from this time with the same name, but he was too young in 1876 to get a patent. Louis Chambon was born on 21 August 1861 in La Voulte-sur-Rhône (Ardèche). He graduated as a mechanical engineer from Ecole des Arts et Métiers in Aix en Provence in the early 1880s and went to work in Paris. In 1887, he founded a small company, the Machines Chambon, designing his first machine, a printing press, for a cigarette manufacturer.

In 1889, Chambon took advantage of the opportunity offered by the Paris World Fair to exhibit 5 printing machines. This exhibition brought him commercial success and his first contact with the sugar industry. In 1891 he built the world’s first web-fed printing machine, in 5 colors. In 1894, with the Braunstein brothers, Chambon developed a machine for entangling the sheets of cigarette paper, which led to the creation of the brand of cigarette paper Zig-Zag. Among the productions automated by genius Chambon machines are cigarettes, postage stamps, chocolate wrappers, coffee packets, laundry boxes, tram, and metro tickets, bottle labels, etc.

Louis Chambon died on 29 May 1932 in his property in La Châtaigneraie in Ardèche, but the Machines Chambon company existed for more than a century, until 1989 when it merged with Komori Corporation to form Komori-Chambon, an important company in the printing world.

Interestingly, Louis Chambon was a holder of numerous patents from the late 1800s and early 1900s, several of them related to adding machines and cash registers—US patents Nr. 765573 for Composing disk for cash registers or adding machines, Nr. 790627 for Automatic spool carrying drawer for cash registers, Nr. 885464 for Color printing device in cash registers, and many other similar French, Austrian, German, and Swedish patents.

In June 1876, Niels Larsen (1830-1891), a citizen of West Point, Cuming county, Nebraska, applied for a patent for calculating machine for taxes and interest. The patent was granted on 17 October 1876 (see US patent No. 183403). Besides the patent application nothing is known about the machine, so obviously it remained only on paper and had not been implemented on practice. Interestingly, one of the witnesses of the patent was Uriah Erdman Bruner (1830-1905), owner of the local Bruner’s Bank. The other witness—Frederick W. Ragoss (1845-1926), was a county clerk and owner of the local jewelry store. So most probably Bruner and Ragoss needed such a machine and ordered its creation to the inventive Larsen, who was the local mechanical genius.

The instrument of Larsen was announced as designed for calculating taxes and interest with speed and accuracy, but it doesn’t contain calculating mechanism, but a mechanism for showing tables. It consists of three concentric cylinders, which are movable independently of each other, and the two outer ones provided with openings, allowing portions of each cylinder to be seen. The cylinders bear numbers, the inner cylinder representing hundreds, the middle one tens, and the outer one units. By properly moving the cylinders the tax or interest upon a given sum or amount will be exhibited through a stationary shield.

The three concentric cylinders (see the upper patent drawing), A B C, are capable of receiving each an independent movement or rotation. The inner cylinder is fixed on a shaft or axis, G, which has its bearings in the side pieces of the stand F. The middle and outer cylinders are provided with sleeves, which are movable upon each other and the shaft G, and both the shaft and sleeves are provided with milled heads E for rotating the cylinders.

The shield F, bears the name of the tax, or the number of days or months for interest, and it is perforated in such a manner as to expose to sight only the amount upon which tax or interest is to be calculated, and the amount of the tax or interest.

The operation of the machine for calculating taxes is as follows: To determine the tax on an assessment of seven hundred and sixty-four dollars, bring the figure 4 on the outside or unit cylinder to view in the opening of the shield under the word “assessment,” and let the spring-catch hold that cylinder. Now bring the figure 6 on the middle cylinder to view in the same opening, and in line with the figure 4 on the first cylinder, and let the spring-catch also hold the middle cylinder. Now, by bringing the figure 7 on the third cylinder to view in the same manner, the amount of the assessment can be read. This having been done, we find in the appropriate column for each kind of special tax indicated on the shield three lines of figures—those on the outer cylinder representing the tax on four dollars, those on the second cylinder the tax on sixty dollars, and those on the third cylinder the tax on seven hundred dollars. The three sums are then added together mentally by the person using the machine, and entered in the tax-list.

Biography of Niels Larsen

Little is known about Niels Larsen. Obviously of Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian or Swedish) origin, he was born in 1830. The first records for him are from May 1862, when he was enlisted in the US Union Navy and took part in the American Civil War firstly one year as a 2^nd lieutenant in the marine artillery, and then two years (until October 1865) as an acting ensign in US Navy (steamers Niphon and Grand Gulf).

Besides the above-mentioned patent for a calculator, Niels Larsen was a holder of two more US patents—for a candle holder (US patent No. 151297 from 1874) and for a sundial or solar compass (US patent No. 281527 from 1883).

After the war in the late 1860s and early 1870s, Niels Larsen served as a county surveyor of Cuming county, Nebraska. In this period he surveyed and platted many towns in the state, between them West Point, Nebraska, the county seat of Cuming County, which he surveyed and platted in October 1869, and Neligh, the county seat of Antelope County, which he surveyed and platted in February 1873. Then he worked a couple of years (1874-1875) as a surveyor and mine-seeker in Clear Creek County, Colorado, before returning by 1876 to West Point, Nebraska. In the 1880s and early 1890s, Larsen worked as a cashier at West Point National Bank (a witness of his patent from 1883 was William Stuefer—the president of West Point National Bank, mayor of West Point, member of the State Legislature and Senate and treasurer of the State of Nebraska. The other witness was R. F. Stevenson, the local attorney-at-law).

Niels Larsen died on 2 June 1891, in West Point, Nebraska.

The American Calvin James Holman (1827-1892) of Toledo, Ohio, was a businessman and prolific inventor, a holder of numerous (at least 12) US patents for various devices, like sawing machine, vehicle spring, hand truck, sad iron, vehicle wheel, folding umbrella, lock for telescoping bags, etc. One of his patents (US patent Nr. 153826) from 1874 is for an adding machine. The patent model of the device (up to 1880, the US Patent Office required inventors to submit a model with their patent application) is still preserved in the National Museum of American History, Washington, D. C. (see the nearby images).

The adding machine of Calvin James Holman is a brass and cloth device with overall measurements: 8 cm x 15.6 cm x 15.6 cm.

The round device has a cylindrical case that contains two concentric rotating rings (disks), each with 100 divisions (the digits from 0 to 99) engraved evenly around the edge. The outer, lower ring, with digits representing hundreds, is slightly larger than the other ring. Atop these is a metal disc with two adjacent windows, which make it possible to see the digits on the discs below. On top of this disc is a flat ring with four spokes that hold it together. This ring is the size of the lower ring, and it also has 100 divisions around the outside, which are engraved with numbers. There is a window at 1 that allows one to see the disc below. This spoke has a small knob for rotating it.

Rotating this ring so that a number on it is opposite a stop projecting over the ring adds the number to the total already indicated. When the inner makes one revolution, then a carry will be transferred to the outer ring by means of a spur-wheel. There is also a knob or handle on the bottom of the machine for advancing or zeroing the hundreds ring, as well as a strap of cloth for carrying it.

Biography of Calvin Holman

Calvin James Holman was born on 30 October 1827, in Onondaga, New York. He was the son of Jonathan Holman, III (20 Apr 1790-15 Jun 1855) and Lucy “Susan” Townsend (Greenleaf) Holman (17 May 1797-21 Mar 1883), of Templeton, Mass. Calvin had five brothers and five sisters.

Calvin Holman married on 4 Sep 1852 to Adelia Adeline (Offensend) Holman (b. 1834 in Rutland, Vermont), and they had five children: Emma “Della” Adel (b. 1853), Delvin Frank (b. 22 Sep 1855), Emma S. (b. 1857), James “Jarvis” Harlo (b. 20 July 1858), and Delvin J. (b. 1859).

Calvin Holman and his family lived in various towns in Wisconsin (Oshkosh), Ohio (Sylvania and Toledo), before settling in the early 1880s in Chicago, Illinois. Besides being a prolific inventor, Holman was a successful businessman as a proprietor of a mill, owner of a spring manufacturing business, and had substantial holdings in real estate.

Calvin James Holman died in Chicago on 23 August 1892, at the age of 64.

The French inventor Alexis Petetin from Besançon (Doubs), was a holder of two French patents (№110349 from 27 Nov. 1875 and №163925 from 27 April 1884) and one German patent (№32148, 24 Jan. 1885) for adding machines. Besides the patent applications, nothing is known about the calculating machines of Petetin, so obviously they remained only on paper.

The first machine of Petetin, Additionneur mécanique (see the nearby patent drawing) is a large 10-key one-column adder (i.e. having the capacity for adding but one digital column at a time) with two 100 teeth result wheels, somewhat similar to the earlier adder of Thomas Hill from 1857. The device features a simple and reliable construction and can be used for sums up to 9999.

The second patent of Petetin is for a small three-key pocket adder (Additionneur de poche à trois touches) and it seems it is the first device of this kind in the history of mechanical calculators.

Button C (see the nearby drawing) is used for entering units, button D is for tens, and button E is for hundreds. The tens carry mechanism is implemented through a resilient shaft c₁, which meshes to the next ratchet wheel during the carry.

This portable device can be used only for simple adding operations up to 999. The disadvantage is that wheels are always shifted by only one tooth while pressing a button, so the buttons should be pressed as many times as the sum of corresponding digits. e.g. if you want to enter the number 421 you have to press four times the button E, twice the button D, and once the button C.

Biography of Alexis Petetin

Almost nothing is known about the inventor of these adding machines. Alexis Auguste Petetin was born on 23 November 1826 and died after 1890. He was a luthier and merchant, and in the 1870s and 1880s, he lived in Besançon, Rue Moncey 7. He was married to Marie Othilie Deland (1826-24.01.1890) and they had a daughter—Marie Cécile Petetin (1856-after 1886).

Cyrus Grant Spalding (1835-1918), a book keeper and inventor from Boston, Massachusetts, was a holder of two US patents for simple adding machines: patent №146407 from 13 January 1874, and №293809 from 19 February 1884. The second patent of Spalding (see the lower patent drawing) is for a device (an improved version of the first patented device), which had an additional wheel for hundreds, while the first device has a special index for hundreds.

The Spalding Adding Machine (based on both patents) is nested in a beautiful wooden case with dimensions: 8″ x 8″ x 2″, while the device itself has dimensions: 7″ x 7″ x 1″. The calculator has a clock hand for units, co-operating with a dial graduated from to 99, showing the figures 5, 10, 15, etc., to 95, for every five graduations. Another similar hand or arrow and dial to register the hundreds is also provided to the right, having the capacity to register nineteen hundred. Attached to the arrows, through a shaft connection at the back of the casing are ratchet wheels, having respectively the same number of teeth as the graduation of the dial to which each hand belongs.

Cooperating with the hundred-tooth ratchet of the units and tens register hand is a ratchet and lever motion device to turn the arrow from one to nine points of the graduation of the dial. The ratchet and lever-motion device consists of the spring-pressed pawl E, mounted on the lever arm D, engaging the hundred-tooth ratchet, the link or push-rod F, the lever G, and its spring O. A downward action of the lever G, will, through the rod F, cause a like downward action of the lever D, causing the ratchet pawl E to be drawn over the ratchet teeth. Upon the release of the lever G, the spring O, will return it to its normal position and through the named connecting parts, ratchet forward the arrow.

The normal position of the pawl E is jammed into the tooth of the ratchet and against the bracket C, that forms the pivot support for the pivot shaft of the arrow. This jammed or locked combination serves to stop the momentum of the ratchet wheel at the end of the ratcheting action, and holds the wheel and its arrow normally locked until the lever G is again depressed.

The means for gauging the depression and additive degrees of action of the lever G is produced through the slides or keys marked a, having finger-pieces c, springs f, and pins e, bearing against the top of the lever G, combined with what may be called a compensating lever marked K.

The specification of the patent states that the depression of a key will depress the lever G and the free end will engage the bent end t, of the compensating lever K, and rock its involute curved arm M, upward until it engages the pin e of the key, which will block further motion of the parts.

The carry of the hundreds is accomplished by means of one-step ratchet device represented by the parts lever R, pawl T, spring P, and operating pin g. When the hundred-tooth ratchet nears the end of its revolution, the pin g, made fast therein, engages the free end of the ratchet lever R, and depresses it; and as the hand attached to the hundred-tooth ratchet wheel passes from 99 to the 0.

The operation of the adding machine of Spalding, which will add columns of figures with unerring accuracy and surprising rapidity, can be seen in the lower instruction of the machine.

It seems several hundred Spalding adding machines (a.k.a. Surprise Adder) were produced and sold by the end of 19^th century, but only about ten devices are known to exist now.

Biography of Cyrus Spalding

Cyrus Grant Spalding was born on 26 September 1835, in Waltham, Massachusetts, a son of Cyrus Spalding (1802-1880), a blacksmith, and Susan Straw Grant (1807-1895), a school teacher. Cyrus Spalding the father was born on 28 Sep 1802, in Hillsboro, New Hampshire, and died on 22 May 1880, in Chicopee Falls, Hampden Co., MA. He married Susan Straw Grant (6 Sep 1807-23 Feb 1895) from Lyman, Maine, on 29 Sep 1831, in Hillsborough.

Cyrus Spalding Jr. married Emily Clark Swart (born 25 Mar 1838 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts–died 3 Aug 1912), daughter of the blacksmith David Swart (1814-1891) and Mehitable C. Clark (1815-1880), on 15 December 1859, in Chicopee, Hampden county, Massachusetts. On 6 October 1860, was born their first daughter, Susan Emily (died in July 1937), and in 1867 a second daughter, Mary A., who died as a child.

In the middle 1860s Cyrus Spalding took part in the Civil War (he was enlisted in the 10th Unattached Company of Massachusetts Volunteer Militia), then returned to Chicopee, where by 1870 he worked as a bookkeeper. Cyrus then moved for several years to Boston, then returned to Springfield, MA, and its surroundings (Northampton and Chicopee), working again as a bookkeeper, while trying to establish the production and selling of his adding machine.

Cyrus Spalding died in 1918 and was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery, Chicopee, Hampden County, Massachusetts.

On 25 March 1873 Archibald Milton Stephenson (1844-1913), a railroad company agent (meanwhile performing tours as a traveling salesman) of Manteno, a village in Kankakee County, Illinois, took out a 17 years US patent №137107 for Adding Machine (see the lower patent drawing). Despite its very simple construction and operation, Stephenson’s adding device and its analogs were perhaps actively being sold as late as 1929, a period of 56 years!

The original Stephenson’s Adding Machine is a four-wheeled stylus-operated column adder (this means that you can only add single digits to its total, and when you want to add a list of larger numbers you used it to add them one single column of digits at a time) with a rectangular wooden base and an automatic tens carry, made by wood, paper and brass. Measurements of the device are: 2 cm x 26.6 cm x 9 cm. The patent model of Stephenson’s Adder survived to our time and is kept now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution (see the lower image).

Four adjacent rotating wheels are inset in the wooden base, with a metal cover that fits over them. The three small wheels on the right each have a metal arm pivoted at their centers and ten evenly spaced indentations around the edge. The digits from 0 to 9 are marked on the cover just outside each of these wheels. The numbers increase counter-clockwise going around the first and third wheels and clockwise going around the second wheel. The two middle wheels also have ten pins arranged just inside the indentations. The pins of one wheel are linked to the arm of the wheel to the right of it. The fourth, leftmost, wheel is larger and has 20 indentations and 20 pins. The indentations are numbered from 0 to 19 going counter-clockwise. There are no detents shown, which could make the actions erratic.

Stephenson probably never made any adders to the original design (besides the patent model). For the production devices, he modified it heavily, reducing the number of dials to only two, and adding a single detent with a leaf spring (to stop the leftmost wheel from turning further than one position when the tooth from the rightmost wheel engages it).

The two-wheeled versions were sold at least up to the end of the 1920s under a number of different names (Perfection Adding Machine, Universal Adding Machine, Mindling Vest Pocket Adding Machine, Tel-O-Flash Adder, etc.), made by different manufacturers (including the Stephenson’s own workshop in Joliet, Illinois), which are sold at the end of 19^th and the beginning of 20^th century for $1-$2.

In the two-wheeled production version (see the nearby photo), the user may enter only single digits in the right wheel. There is also an automatic carry to the left wheel, which registers up to 19 so that the maximum sum is 199. The Stephenson’s adder is a modest device, both in size, capacity, and presumably price, but it seems to have been an aid for people adding long columns of figures using paper and pencil.

The device is only 3.5 inches long, 2-3 mm thick, and is constructed entirely of brass. Numbers are entered by means of a pen. Reverse turn (i.e. subtraction) is not possible. Reset is done by manual forward rotation to 0.

Biography of Archibald Stephenson

Archibald Milton Stephenson was born on 2 June 1844, near a creek called Brown’s Wonder near Lebanon, Indiana, northwest of Indianapolis. He was the son of John A. Stephenson (born 1814) and Jane Jamison Stephenson (1820-1860), both natives of Kentucky. Archibald’s grandfather, Robert Stephenson, Jr. (1781-1859), and his numerous family (he had 3 children with his first wife Martha McAnulty, and 8 children with his second wife Sarah McDole) left Kentucky and settled in Clinton Township, Boone County, in 1833. It is believed the family left Kentucky because of their disapproval of slavery.

in the middle 1830s John Stephenson and two of his brothers—Robert (1806–1861), and William (1815–1901), became early settlers of Lebanon, IN, as John is said to have been named constable in 1836, while his brother Robert was elected justice of the peace. John Stephenson married Jane Jamison in 1839, and they had three children: Elvira Ann (1840–1909), Mary E. (1842–1908), and Archibald Milton (1844-1913).

In 1860 the entire family of John Stephenson moved to Tolono, Illinois. In 1863 Archibald Stephenson started his career as an agent of the Illinois Central Railroad at Peotone, Illinois. Later, he became a billing clerk. In 1865 he became a traveling salesman and left Illinois, making a complete tour of the US, visiting every state and territory.

Upon returning to Illinois a couple of years later, Stephenson established in Beardston and became an agent of Rockford, Rock Island & St. Louis Railroad. In the early 1870s, we found him in Manteno, Illinois, where he patented his adding device, but at some point he returned to Beardston, where he remained until 1879, working as an agent of the railroad company, meanwhile performing several tours as a traveling salesman.

In 1879 Stephenson left the railroad business and moved to Wilmington, then to Braidwood and Braceville, Illinois, where he was engaged in the newspaper and publishing business, which he left in 1892, making another trip, covering again every US state and territory.

In 1895 Stephenson set up in Joliet, Illinois, starting work as a printer, then as a solicitor, and again as a traveling agent. In 1906 he established his own printing company.

Archibald Stephenson married in 1865 to Frances Almeda Stephenson, born Wilkens (1846–1935), and they had four children (three daughters: Eva Mae (1872-1950), Ura May (b. 1873), and Alta M. (1876-1929), and a son—Francis A. (1884-1906). Archibald Stephenson belonged to a Masonic Lodge and was a passionate republican.

Archibald Milton Stephenson died on 13 September 1913, of a stroke, at St. Luke’s Hospital, Utica, New York, while on one of his selling trips as the representative of an adding machine company, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Joliet.

On 11 August 1871, Captain Gustavus Linderoos (1818-1885) from Point Arena, Mendocino, California, filed a patent application for a simple adding machine, which boasted a limited ability to run subtotals while retaining the master total. The patent (US patent No. 140146) was granted on 24 June 1873.

The adding machine of Linderoos is similar in appearance to the so-called Ciclografo from the 1650s, attributed to the Italian scientist Tito Livio Burattini. The patent model of the device (see the nearby photo) survived to our time and is kept now in the collection of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

The purpose of the adding machine of Gustavus Linderoos was to be a compact, cheap, and durable instrument, to be used in practice not only as an adding device but also as a recording device. In the patent application, the inventor stated:
The object of this invention is not simply to facilitate the adding of abstract numbers, although by it any numbers the sum of which is equal or less than one hundred thousand may be readily obtained without the use of paper or pencil, and with perfect accuracy. The main purpose is to afford weighers, measurers, and persons having to keep tally where a continuous succession of small numbers is to be added-and where it is at the same time necessary that there should be no omission, or mistake, or loss through forgetfulness, by interruption or otherwise, of the sum obtained at any point—a simple, cheap, pocket instrument not liable to get out of order, and affording an easy and certain means of keeping the sum of the unity, whether of weight or measure, at any time accumulated. The special use and advantage may be illustrated by the measuring of boards-and other lumber, while an exact account of the number of feet is kept when the lumber is shipped. The person keeping the tally notes the number of feet in each plank as it passes, and, by the ordinary methods of paper and pencil, or by mere memory of items, there is always liability of mistake…

Let’s examine the adding device of Linderoos, using the patent drawings (see the drawing below).

The shield-shaped brass instrument has an overall measurement of 1.5 cm x 12 cm x 15.8 cm.

The device has four disks, as the middle large disk serves as the drive. This disk is an inset rotating disc (provided with a spring underneath to keep it steady and pressed up to the face-plate) with 100 holes numbered clockwise around its edge. The outside of the disk also has 100 numbered divisions. A piece of the outer shield curves in across the disk to the center and serves as a stop during the addition.

Above the large disk on top of the shield are three smaller wheels (disks with pinions). The wheel on the right is numbered counterclockwise from 0 to 9 and labeled: 100—1000. The wheel in the middle is numbered clockwise from 0 to 9 and labeled: 1000—10000. The leftmost wheel is numbered clockwise by tens from 0 to 10 and labeled: 10000—100000. There is an ornamental pointer for each wheel.

Rotating the large central disk through 100 causes the 100—1000 disk to rotate one unit (there is a tooth for tens carry). The small wheels for 100—1000 and 1000—10000 also have tens carry teeth. The three smaller wheels also may be rotated separately, to make the zeroing easier.

Biography of Gustavus Linderoos

Gustavus Linderoos was born in 1818 in Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire. He came from an excellent family from the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland. Gustavus was educated in a Naval School in Sweden, in which he served as a tutor for some years, carrying several prizes for proficiency in mathematics and astronomy. Completing his education, he embraced the profession of a sailor, and soon rose to the rank of master and became a thorough navigator both in a practical and technical sense.

In 1849 the gold fever brought Gustavus to California. Growing weary of the sea, he made his home in San Francisco and went into various ventures with varying success.

In 1859 Gustavus went to Point Arena, a small coastal town in Mendocino County, California, where he established a general merchandise business (store Lane&Linderoos) in company with Peter Frederick Lane (1821-1908), also a native of Sweden and a prominent merchant from San Francisco at this time. Retiring from business in about a year, he was elected Justice of the Peace and Notary Public for the county of Mendocino, which offices he held for more than 20 years. He was also a postmaster of Point Arena for several years and used to take part in various public and business activities.

Captain Gustavus Linderoos died in Point Arena on 1 June 1885, after a lingering illness, the disease being cancer of the stomach.