Category: Timeline Stories

In his short life, the Japanese inventor Ryoichi Yazu (1878-1908) was mainly interested in the mechanics of flight and at the end of the 1890s designed one of the first airplanes in the world, but remained best known for his invention of Japan’s first mechanical calculator (in fact, there is another Japanese inventor, who patented a mechanical calculator several years before Yazu—Shohé Tanaka, but his device remained only on paper).

Yazu left his home village at the age of 16 and went to Osaka to pursue his interest in flight, studying mathematics and engineering at a private school. At the age of 22, he returned home and began work on a thesis on the mechanics of flight. It is believed, that at the same time he got the idea for the calculating machine while helping with his father’s clerical work, and conducted research on calculating machines. Two years later he brought the thesis Principles of Flight and a model of his biquinary mechanical calculator on a visit to the novelist and army physician Mori Ogai (1862-1922) in Kokura, Kyushu. Interestingly, Mori Ogai studied together with Shohé Tanaka in the late 1880s in Germany (in 1908 Tanaka married a relative of Ogai), so we may suppose that Ogai was informed about Tanaka’s works in the area of adding machines and shared his knowledge with Yazu. Anyway, Ogai was very impressed by Yazu and wrote recommendations that led to a special research position at the Tokyo Imperial College of Engineering, where Yazu worked on the design of a propeller-driven airplane.

In March 1902, Yazu applied for a patent on his Jido Soroban (automatic abacus) and completed a prototype, made entirely of metal. The patent (see the nearby patent drawing) was granted in January 1903 (pat. No. 6010), and in March a shop was established in Tokyo, where the first calculator in Japan (known as Patent Yazu Arithmometer) was manufactured. In 1910 Yazu (posthumously) got another patent (pat. No. 18119) for an improved version of his calculator. The latter mechanism could shift numbers automatically during multiplication and division and to stop calculations automatically when finished. Interestingly, in 1912 the same device was patented in the USA by one Doichi Yadu (an accidental resemblance of names, or misspelled name of the inventor?!) of Sudamura, Fukuoka, Japan (see US patent 1029655).

The Yazu Arithmometer was a manual desktop gear type calculator with pin-wheel mechanism, which performed decimal arithmetical operations (it may be used to add, subtract, multiply and divide), using a single cylinder and 22 gears with biquinary number setting (a mixed base-2 and base-5 number system, familiar to the users of Japanese abacus soroban). It was capable of arithmetic calculations up to 16 digits, as the carry and end of the calculation were determined automatically. A revolution counter is also available.

The price of Patent Yazu Arithmometer was rather high (¥250) for the time (more than ten times the monthly salary of a lower-level government official), but nevertheless, more than machines 200 were sold, mainly to government agencies, including the Ministry of War, the Home Ministry, the Statistics Bureau, and agricultural experimental stations, but also to big companies such as Nippon Railway. The profits from the sales Yazu invested into his airplane research.

In the introductory pamphlet Yazu stated:
Today, calculators are everywhere in the cities of Europe and America… However, these calculators were invented by foreigners with no knowledge of our abacus, and although they are superior to the abacus in many ways, there are more than a few points where they are still inconvenient. This new automatic abacus can meet the needs of those who wish to combine the abacus and the calculator to realize a fast calculation machine, and is being purchased by many customers who previously used foreign-made calculators…

Biography of Ryoichi Yazu

Ryoichi Yazu was born on 30 June 1878, in the village of Iwaya, located some 10 km SW of Buzen, a town located in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, in the family of a village mayor.

As a boy, Ryoichi attended primary and middle school in his home village and the city of Buzen. At the age of 16, he left middle school and moved to Osaka to pursue his interest in flight, studying mathematics and engineering at a private school. There he learned the basic subjects and did research on flight and desktop calculators. With a model of his mechanical calculating machine (automatic abacus), which took three years of hard work to complete, and a paper on “Principles of Flight”, which summarized the results of his years of research, he met a man named Takahashi (probably Takahashi Shigeru, who studied medicine in Europe in the 1880s and was a friend of Mori Ogai), who was the editor in chief of the Fukuoka Nichinichi Shimbun newspaper. Takahashi was greatly impressed by Yazu’s abilities and wrote a letter of introduction to his friend Mori Rintaro (Mori Ogai), who was a medical officer in the Ogura 12th Medical Corps. Ogai described his meeting with Yazu in the entry for 22 February 1901 in his Kokura Nikki (Kokura Diary), and he also was deeply impressed by Yazu’s character and research, and worked as a go-between with the professors of Tokyo Imperial University, recommending Yazu to get a special research position at the Tokyo Imperial College of Engineering.

In his short life, Yazu proved himself as a very clever inventor in many fields ranging from the dictionary to airplanes and mechanical calculating machines.

Ryoichi Yazu died from pleurisy only 30 years old, on 16 October 1908, in Tokyo. The Japanese proverb Pegasus flies in the sky is what Mori Ogai wrote in his diary concerning Yazu’s premature death.

Later his father tried to improve the machine and resume the business but had no success. Nobody remembered his calculating machine, but after that several companies have begun to sell similar calculating machines. One machine of Yazu was found in 1977 by Uchiyama (IBM) in the house of his sister’s descendants.

In the early 1890s the young Japanese scientist and inventor Shohé Tanaka (1862-1945), at this time, making his doctoral studies in the capital of the German Reich, Berlin, devised an adding machine. In 1895 he applied for and later obtained several patents for such machines: two German patents from 1895 and 1896 (pat. No. DE90288 for Additionsmaschine, 14.11.1895, and DE92217), a French patent from 1897 (FR262466 for Mécanisme darrêt pour machine à additionner), and a Great Britain patent from 1898 (see pat. No. GB189708723 for Improvements in and relating to Adding Machines). In fact, the primary object of Tanaka’s invention was a stop mechanism for adding machines, preventing the toothed wheels from surpassing.

Let’s examine the device of Shohé Tanaka, using his Great Britain patent (see the lower drawing of the patent GB189708723).

The object of Tanaka’s stop mechanism for adding machines is to prevent the toothed wheel, called the number wheel in these machines, being worked by the spring or tappet which makes it move, from surpassing, by its acquired speed the exact point it should reach to mark a number required. In such machines the rotation of the number wheel takes place generally at once by depressing a key, and therefore when the keys are played very rapidly or with great force, then the number wheel, on account of the force acquired, will move far beyond the expected amount. This inherent problem of keyboard calculators remained unsolved in most machines of the time, and thus was addressed by Tanaka’s invention.

The apparatus of Tanaka is characterized by a moveable rod and a stoppage-click, which is allowed to assume a rotation movement of a certain amplitude on this moveable rod. This stoppage-click is functioning in such a manner that the pressure exercised upon a key of the adding apparatus, places the click into contact with the toothed-wheel or number wheel, causing it to turn until the moveable rod runs against a vertically moving peg fastened to the extremity of the lever of the key operated upon, so that any subsequent rotation which might be occasioned by the speed obtained by the toothed wheel during its movement is absolutely avoided. A spring having during this time sent up the key on which pressure was exercised. The stoppage-click being thus loosened from the teeth of the number wheel returns along with the moveable rod to its former position.

Biography of Shohé Tanaka

Shohé (Shōhei) Tanaka was born on 12 June 1862, in Yahata village, in the vicinity of Minamiawadji, now a town in Mihara District, Awaji Province, Japan. As a child, he demonstrated a good ear for music and was fond of ningyo joruri (Japanese puppet theatre in which recited narrative and dialog are accompanied by a shamisen). He also collected insects and arranged imaginary competitions between them, according to the sounds they issued.

In 1874 Tanaka enrolled the Foreign Languages School in Osaka, but soon he moved to the English Language School in Tokyo. In 1877 he enrolled the School of Foreign Studies in Tokyo and in 1878 the Natural Sciences Faculty of Tokyo Imperial University. His fellow students were some famous Japanese scientists like the physicist Tanakadate Aikitsu (1856-1952), and the mathematician Rikitaro Fujisawa (1861-1933).

At this time a visiting professor of physics at Tokyo Imperial University was Thomas Corwin Mendenhall (1841–1924), an American autodidact physicist and meteorologist. Mendenhall was convinced that understanding music is a prerequisite for the successful study of physics, and in the physics room in this connection, there was a small organ to which Tanaka had direct access. Moreover, Mendenhall postulated that Western European music was built in accordance with the laws of nature, which was followed by the “unnaturalness” of Japanese music, which contradicted Tanaka’s intuitions and stimulated the beginning of his research in this field. It was Mendenhall who introduced Tanaka to the notion of the just intonation: on Saturdays, he used to invite students to his home, played them on the violin, and laid out the foundations of the theory of music.

In 1882, Tanaka graduated from the University (Department of Physics), becoming the youngest at that time graduate in the history of the University. At the ceremony of awarding diplomas, Tanaka received from the hands of Emperor a silver medal for his academic achievements. Since December of the following year, he started working as an assistant lecturer, defending the appropriate qualification work.

In 1884, after receiving the Imperial Scholarship, Tanaka was sent together with other young Japanese scientists and intellectuals (including Mori Ogai, the prominent Japanese army surgeon, translator, and novelist, whose Doitsu nikki (German diary) kept records of Tanaka, Mori was sent to study military hygiene and sanitation from 1884-88) to Berlin, Germany, for research in the fields of musical acoustics and electromagnetism, which he defined for himself as a priority.

The scholarship was for a three-year stay in Germany, but in the end, Tanaka spent fifteen years there. At the University of Berlin Tanaka began to work under the guidance of the prominent German physicist Hermann Helmholtz.

Throughout his stay in Germany, Tanaka intensively studied European music. In Berlin, he studied piano and sang in a choir. In addition, he studied harmony, musical form, and counterpoint. In 1890, Tanaka published his primary work on musical acoustics “Studien im Gebiete der reinen Stimmung.” Tanaka also designed and patented (United States Patent 443305, 23 Dec 1890) a just intonation musical instrument Enharmonium (enharmonic+harmonium) with 20 keys and 26 pitches in an octave. It was a remarkably complicated mechanism featuring twenty-two divisions of the octave, knee levers, and a transposing mechanism. Tanaka traveled widely across Europe promoting its virtues with great success to the public, eventually attracting support from Emperors Meiji and Kaiser Wilhelm II (in April 1890), and musicians including Anton Bruckner, Hans von Bülow, Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Joseph Joachim, Moritz Moszkowski, Carl Reinecke, among others.

During the last years of his stay in Germany (for the last five years he had voluntarily stayed in Germany at his own expense, as it was inappropriate for the state to finance its activities that took a different direction from the one for which this financing was originally funded), Tanaka departed from musical acoustics and in the period from 1894 to 1899 he conducted intensive research in the field of engineering with a specialization in railway transport. In this period he obtained also several patents for calculating machines.

In 1899, Tanaka returned to Japan and joined the company Japan Railways. In 1907, he went to work at the Imperial Railroad Administration under the Ministry of Railway Transport, in 1909—as a representative of the inspection at the Office, and in 1911—as its head. In 1913, Tanaka left the leading post and switched to part-time employment, combining it with work in the Ministry of Culture and Education (since 1921 he was a member of the Committee on Japanese Music), as well as leading the music society “Pure Sound”, which he created in 1907.

In October 1908, Shohé Tanaka married Take Yamanaka, a relative of his friend and fellow student— Mori Ogai.

Shohé Tanaka is considered one of the founders of modern Japanese musicology. After his retirement in 1929, he resumed his studies of the just intonation and conducted active research and organizational musical activity until his death. He also led the Institute of Electrical Engineering, established by him in 1930, for which in 1937 he was awarded the Asahi Prize in the field of culture. In the last years of his life, Tanaka also worked at the “Institute for the Study of Folk Spiritual Culture”, created during the war years for ideological purposes, where he studied the preservation of traditional Japanese music.

During World War II Shohé Tanaka was evacuated to Shibayama, now a town in Sanbu District, Chiba Prefecture, Japan. He died there on 16 October 1945.

Alexander Rechnitzer (1880-1922) is an Austrian Jew, a holder of numerous patents for calculating devices in Austria (4 patents), Germany (10), Switzerland (2), USA (6, see his first US patent), France (4), Great Britain (7), Canada (1), and Sweden (2). Rechnitzer appeared to be an extremely talented mechanic and versatile inventor, who built his first experimental model at the age of 19. One of his later patents is for a talking calculating machine.

Rechnitzer spent his youth in Vienna and studied at the Technical College. His first patent application, describing a stepped-drum motor-driven calculating machine, he filed on 30 November 1900. The patent was granted in 1904 (Austrian patent Nr. AT15514). Several years later this patent will be implemented in the world’s first motor-driven calculating machine, put in serial production, made by his company Autarit GmbH, of Vienna, under the name Autarith (from AUTomatic and ARITHmetic). It was the third calculator with electromagnetic operation, after the devices of Charles Pidgin and Charles Weiss, but it was much more sophisticated and was put in serial production, even though in small quantities and without market success. It was also the first machine to embody fully automatic multiplication and division. In fact, in his first patent Rechnitzer used as the driving force a spring motor, as it was then used as a power source in the watches (a weight drive as in the large clocks was also proposed), but in his later patents, Rechnitzer used an electric motor.

Based on and similar to the Thomas de Colmar machine (stepped drums and two rows of setting sliders, one in the lower part and second on the movable cartridge beneath the result windows), this calculator also used an automatic multiplication and division mechanism patented by Rechnitzer, which will be used later successfully in machines like Mercedes of Christel Hamann, and Madas of Hans Egli.

For addition, the first number is entered in the lower slots, the machine is set to addition by means of a button, the start key for the motor (of about 1/16 horsepower) is pressed and the number is thus transferred into the result mechanism.

For subtraction, the greater number is entered into the result mechanism (numerical wheels), the machine is set to subtraction by means of a button, the start key for the motor is pressed and the remainder can be seen in the result mechanism.

For multiplication, the multiplicand is entered in the numerical wheels, the machine is set to multiplication by moving the control lever, the multiplier is entered by means of the setting sliders, and the motor is started, causing the machine to complete the calculation automatically. With each revolution of the shaft, the settings slide, at the first place from the right, moves one digit towards zero. When it arrives at zero, the carriage is automatically shifted by one place, and now the slide set in this place commences to move automatically towards the zero position, and so on, until multiplication is complete and the result is displayed on the result windows.

The division was done by setting the dividend in the numerical wheels, the divisor in the lower setting slides, then moving the control lever to the divide position, whereupon the machine would automatically complete the calculation.

The capacity of the machine is 16 figures in the product, though a more extended result is possible by resetting the indicators for the handling of the remainder, which is shown in connection with an incomplete operation. The machine only needed from 12 to 20 seconds to produce 16-digit results.

In January 1905 Rechnitzer traveled to the USA invited by Keuffel & Esser Co., New York, the leading US manufacturer of scientific instruments, which distributed calculating machines also (e.g. machine of Burkhardt), to present Autarith. Keuffel & Esser approved his machine and financed the production of a small series (some 10 devices). In 1906 the machine was included in the catalog of the company and was presented at the “New York Business Show”. It made calculations without objection and was perfectly suitable for everyday use. However, Rechnitzer and Keuffel & Esser were unable to come to an agreement despite initial success.

The nearby picture shows Rechnitzer‘s final effort to produce a salable automatic four-rules calculating machine. He started the construction of this model in 1912. The pulley on the left end provided for a belt drive. This machine can do automatic shortcut multiplication and full automatic division, and it contains a memory mechanism. The memory makes it possible to install a second multiplicand and multiplier while the machine is making the last preceding multiplication and to install a new dividend during the computation of the last preceding division.

Rechnitzer worked on his Autarith for over 20 years, completely redesigned and developed it several times, and in the process made great inventions that are still surprising today. The only surviving to present time Rechnitzer’s machine was left in his last apartment in Vienna and was given to the Technisches Museum Wien in 1933 as a gift from his sister Paula. His machine was described in several articles in magazines and newspapers, including the US magazines Business World, Volume 25, November 1905 (see the article for Autarith in Business World), and American Machinist, 16. Dec. 1905 (see the article in American Machinist: page 1, page 2).

Biography of Alexander Rechnitzer

Alexander (Sándor) Rechnitzer was born on 5 May 1879 probably in Preßburg (now Bratislava), Austria-Hungary Empire, in the German-speaking Jewish family of Franz Rechnitzer (b. 1849 in Körmend, a town in Transdanubia, the part of Hungary west of the Danube river) and Karoline Rechnitzer (Stern) (b. in 1849 in Győr-died 1938 in Vienna). Rechnitz is a municipality in Burgenland in the Oberwart district in Austria, some 40 km north of Körmend, and the local Jewish community was under the jurisdiction of Rechnitz, so Rechnitzer was a popular surname among local Jews.

Franz was the son of Sándor (Alexander) Rechnitzer and Katharina (Catarin) Rechnitzer (died 1858), and Karoline was the daughter of Heinrich Stern and Fanny Stern (Strasser) (1817-1910). The family lived in Körmend (in the 19th century a significant part of the town’s population was Jewish, some 15%), but it seems at the end of the 1870s the family moved to Preßburg with his just-born daughter Katerina (1878-1943), and after the birth of Alexander, in early 1880s they moved again to Vienna, where they had two more daughters: Paula (b. 1883), and Hilda (b. 1885).

It seems Franz Rechnitzer died young (or the family parted because, in the late 1890s, we found one Franz Rechnitzer, engaged in shipping, in Körmend), while at the same time, Alexander Rechnitzer lived in Vienna only with his mother Karoline Rechnitzer (Glockengasse 1), and studied mechanical engineering at the local Technische Hochschule (Technical College of Vienna, now Technical University).

Between 1905 and 1909 Rechnitzer lived, with interruptions, in Berlin (Bergmannstraße 1). In September 1909 he returned to Vienna and founded Autarit-Gesellschaft m.b.H. with a share capital of 220000 kroner ( a lot for a company that never really produced in series and hardly bought any machine tools), as the main investor was the US company The Rex Co. Rechnitzer share was 20000, together with all his patents. A small workshop with two or three good mechanics was founded, in which new trial and patent models for the offices and for interested industrialists were created. Rechnitzer was the managing director and also a partner of Autarit GmbH (the company existed until 1931). In the years after World War I he lived in Frankfurt am Main where the company opened a branch in 1912.

Starting from 1902, Rechnitzer traveled several times to the USA (at least four voyages are registered—in 1902, 1905, 1912, and 1921), and usually stayed in New York for about a year, trying to establish the production of his Autarith in the USA. However, his last travel ended tragically.

In February 1921 Rechnitzer traveled for the last time to the USA, carrying his fourth version of a fully automatic machine, and in New York, he again proved to be a brilliant engineer, but a poor businessman and didn’t manage to organize the production of his remarkable calculator. Financial conditions preyed on his mind to the extent that he became mentally unbalanced and died in despondency in April 1922. His body was found in New York’s East River and finally found a resting place in Potter’s Field. But his life was not a failure, as his inventions have been widely commercialized by others. Looking at his patents, featuring an extremely well-illustrated and detailed description of every single part (look for example one of Rechnitzer’s patents for calculating and printing machine), it is evident that he was not only a remarkable engineer, but also a neurotic perfectionist, and that is probably the main reason for his life of a hermit and failure to realize his great potential.

Starting from 1881, Charles Kruse of New York was the president of several companies like Kruse Check and Adding Machine Company, Kruse Manufacturing Company, Kruse Cash Register Company, etc. The companies of Kruse made sewing machine parts, gas and steam engine parts, cash registers, adding machines, and typewriters.

Kruse was not an inventor himself but used to order machines for external engineers. In the middle 1880s, he ordered the design of an electrical calculating machine to the inventor Carl (Charles) W. Weiss of Brooklyn, New York. On 31 August 1886, Weiss received a patent (U.S. patent No. 348437) for an Electro Magnetic Adding Machine, assigned to the Kruse Check & Adding Machine Company. In fact, Charles Weiss was a holder of quite a few patents from the 1880s and 1890s, not only for calculating devices and cash registers but also for other machines, many of them assigned namely to Kruse, let’s mention only: sewing machines (US pat. Nr.Nr. 290952 from 1882, 403163 from 1888, 442083 from 1890), electric gas lighters (US pat. Nr.Nr. 310002 from 1884, 314088 from 1885), electric registering apparatus (US pat. Nr. 321069 from 1885), drinking vessel (US pat. Nr. 278205 from 1883), atmospheric engine (US pat. Nr. 351081 from 1886), photographic passenger recorder (US pat. Nr. 283174 from 1883), adding device for check machines (US pat. Nr. 329421 from 1885), etc.

Besides the patent, we don’t have any information about the single-column adding machine of Weiss. There was no marketing campaign nor any other clues for this calculator, although it was one of the first adding devices with electromagnetic operation, after the machine of Charles Pidgin and Francis Leonard from 1883.

The gear wheels are moved by means of an electromagnetic mechanism, powered by batteries. By pressing a key, is closed particular contact and in this way is formed an electromagnet, which is rotating a lever, connected with the gear-wheels. The angle of rotation of the lever depends on the location of the contacts.

Joseph Abraham Valentine Turck (1870-1956) was a famous figure in the world of mechanical calculators. He is the author of some 40 patents in this area, the first (for adding machine and register) received in 1899 (pat. №US622091), and the last in 1956. Some of his patents are received together with Dorr Felt, whose company Felt&Tarant Turck joined in 1911. Turck worked as a chief designer of the company for over 20 years and retired as late as 1953, marking at least 42 years of devoted service. Turck also wrote the famous book Origin of Modern Calculating Machines, published in 1921, used as a source for this site.

In the late 1890s Joseph Turck designed a multi-column key-driven calculating machine, which he patented in 1903. Later on, this machine was manufactured under the name Mechanical Accountant from 1902 until the mid-1920s by the company Mechanical Accountant Co. from Providence, Rhode Island (Turck assigned three patents to the company, and worked for it for several years).

The machine was manufactured under two variants—Mechanical Accountant Simplex and Mechanical Accountant Duplex (see the nearby photo). The difference between the two variants is, that in the Duplex variant can be used multiple rows at a time, which is impossible in the Simplex variant of the machine (in Simplex the simultaneous operation of two columns where a carry is involved results in loss of the carry).

The machine (overall dimensions: 14.2 cm x 21.8 cm x 32.3 cm) has two rows of digital wheels, which can be seen in the row of windows in the upper part of the box. In the upper row can be seen the last entered by the keyboard number, while in the lower row, can be seen the result. The big horizontal key below the digital keys (just like the Space key on a modern keyboard) is used for resetting the upper row of wheels. The lower (entry) row can be reset by means of a crank in the right part of the box.

Biography of Joseph Turck

Joseph Abraham Valentine Turck (named after his grandfather), was born on 1 August 1870, in Camden, New York, to Joseph Hiram Turck (1839-1926), and Mary Carpenter Turck (1844-1915). Joseph Hiram was a physician, born in Athens, N. Y. on 19 March 1839, to Joseph Abraham Valentine Turck (1811-1893) and Emily Matilda Dobson (born 1817), who spent the greater part of his life, practicing medicine in Elmira, N. Y., where he died on 21 Jan. 1926. He married on 9 July 1862 to Mary Carpenter Spelman, born on 15 Dec. 1844 in Providence, Rhode Island, to James Esdel Spelman and Huldah Spelman (Pond), and they had two children: Harriet Hopper (b. 1863), and Joseph Abraham. Joseph Hiram and Mary divorced when Joseph Abraham was a child, and he spent his childhood under his mother (who worked as a dressmaker) in her hometown, Providence.

Joseph Abraham Turck married on 31 October 1904, in Providence, to Florence Margaret (Meta) Heise (born on 24 Oct. 1884, died in July 1963), the daughter of Augustus H. Heise and Louisa C. Heise, and they had two sons and three daughters: Joseph Abraham Valentine Turck Jr. (b. 1911), Marie (b. 1913), Elizabeth Florence (1916-1962), Norman Abraham (1918-1977), and Anita (1925-1972).

The Mechanical Accountant, as Turck named his calculating machine, was produced in Providence into the 1920s. However, Turck chose to leave Providence Mfg and Tool Company, the makers of the Mechanical Accountant, to take a position at Felt & Tarrant. He would spend the rest of his career there. Turck held over 40 Comptometer patents and was still active after his retirement in the 1950s.

The remarkable engineer and inventor Joseph Turck died on 11 October 1956, in Dade, Florida.

In December 1892 the brilliant Swiss engineer Otto Steiger from St. Gallen (1858-1923), who lived in Munich, received his first patent for a calculating machine of direct multiplication type (German patent DE 72870). Next years the machine was patented in Switzerland (No. CH6787), Great Britain (No. GB20968), France (FR228628), USA (US538710 and US558913), and Canada (CA47857). The machine of Steiger is the fourth designed (after the machines of Barbour, Verea, and Bollée), but first commercially-successful direct multiplication calculating machine, which was in production until 1935 and despite its extremely high price (e.g. in the USA at beginning of 20th century machine was sold from $475 all the way up to $1100, at the same time this was the price of a normal car), it had commercial success.

In his German patent of 1892 Steiger describes a machine that uses a mechanical representation of the multiplication table to form partial products, in the same way, that a human “calculator” uses a multiplication table committed to memory. The partial products are then transferred via a “transmitting mechanism” to a “combining and registering mechanism” for display to the operator. Steiger’s machine is to be regarded as a proper multiplication machine in that it solves problems of multiplication directly on the basis of the multiplication table, whereas other types of calculating machines are only adding machines and, as such, carry out multiplication by a continued series of additions.

The main advantage of Steiger’s calculating machine (and of all other direct multiplication machines), as against all other types of calculating machines, is the astounding speed with which it operates, especially while doing multiplication and division. Each place of the multiplier or quotient requires only a single turn of the crank, during which the necessary displacement of the result occurs automatically. For example, a trained operator was able to multiply two 8-digital numbers in about 7 seconds, an incredible speed for this time. The Steiger’s machine could not be surpassed for rapid and reliable multiplication until the fully-automatic rotary calculators became available in the mid to late 1930s.

Steiger’s design was taken up by his friend and countryman—the engineer Hans W. Egli (1862–1923) from Kirchberg, St. Gallen, who made numerous changes and improvements as he developed the machine for production. The machine was produced by his company H. W. Egli, A.G., Zurich, beginning in 1896, under the name Millionaire (Millionär in German). By the early 1900s, 2000 machines were in use, and the last of 4655 Millionaires was sold in 1935. The American agent for the Millionaire was William Morschhauser of New York. Advertising from 1913 claims that the United States government had purchased over 100 Millionaire calculators. Although the Millionaire was developed for business calculations, scientists also found it very useful, and government agencies became the prime customers.

The calculating machine is built into a case (wooden or metal) with a hinged lid, size 67 cm wide, 32 cm deep, 19 cm high. The case has metal carry handles on each end and a metal lock at the front. The machine is made up of various metal components. Adhered inside the lid is a chart printed on paper in black and red containing instructions and a dividing schedule. Also attached to the inside of the lid is a brass safety screw and a cleaning brush made of bristles with a black-painted wooden handle.

The machine is too heavy, about 35 kg. Although excelling in multiplication and division calculations, the Millionaire’s slider setting mechanism was too slow to be useful in adding long columns of figures. The provision of an optional keyboard (1913) instead of sliders (see the photo below) and an electric motor drive (1911) made the machine equally practical for all types of calculations. The motor-driven machine was supplied on a tubular metal stand with the motor and gearbox mounted underneath. The wooden case was replaced with aluminum side panels and a painted sheet-metal cover.

Let’s examine the control panel (see the drawing below). This particular panel has:
In the upper section:
1. Eight input sliders, (marked with e in the drawing). Actually, the machine was manufactured in four variants, as regards to digital positions—6x6x12, 6 input positions (sliders), 6 positions in the counter, 12 positions in the accumulator (result mechanism), 8x8x16, 12x8x20, 10x10x20. There are also variants with 6 and 10 sliders. These sliders are used for the setting the first factor. Below the sliders is included a row of check dials (marked with b) to give a straight-line display of the setting.
2. Multiplier control lever (marked with H, which sets the second factor, one digit at a time, starting with the most significant).
3. The right-hand rear panel contains the lever Regulator, marked with U, which sets the mechanism to Add, Multiply, Divide, or Subtract (AMDS).
4. Operating crank (K). The crank is given one full turn clockwise for each machine cycle, until it comes to rest against a fixed stop in its home position. The crank must never be turned backward.

The lower section of the panel covers the moving carriage, which occupies most of the front half of the machine. The carriage is moved automatically to the left during multiplication and division, and is returned manually while pressing the knob at its left-hand end. In this section are placed:
1. 8-digit counter (windows, marked with c).
2. 16-digit accumulator register (marked with R).
The knobs to the right of each register (marked with k1 and k2) are pulled to the right to clear the display.

Let’s describe the operation of the machine from operator’s perspective:
The Millionaire is primarily a multiplying machine, not an adding machine, and is best described and understood from this perspective.
When we multiply (say) 7 by 6, the result is comprised of four tens and two units. The multiplication table that we have stored in our memory retrieves the answer as the single number 42. The Millionaire also contains a multiplication table, but differs in that it processes the tens and units for each digit separately. These “partial products” are combined in an accumulator register to display a single result.
When the Millionaire multiplies 7 by 6, its controlling mechanism refers to the internal multiplication table and returns the partial product 4 (tens). This is added to the register, which then moves one place to the left. The multiplication table then returns 2 (units), which is added to the register (now to the right of the tens) to display the answer 42. The machine requires only one turn of the crank for each digit of the multiplier but makes two partial-product cycles for each turn—one for the tens, then one for the units.

Let’s examine how to perform arithmetical operations.
Multiplication
The machine is first cleared, the carriage is returned to the right-hand side, and the Regulator is set to M (for multiplication). The first factor (the multiplicand) is set on the sliders or keyboard. The multiplier lever is set to the first (most significant) digit of the second factor and the crank is given one full turn clockwise. The set-and-turn procedure is repeated for the remaining digits. At the end of the process, all three components are visible for verification—the multiplicand in the setting mechanism, the multiplier in the counter register, and the result in the accumulator.

Addition
To perform addition on a multiplying machine, the carriage is held stationary, while the entry is multiplied by 1. The partial product is the same as the original entry, which is added to the accumulator.
The operator has to clear the machine, return the carriage to the right-hand side, set the Regulator to A, and set the multiplier to 1. Numbers entered on the setting mechanism are added to the accumulator by turning the crank. The carriage does not move, and the counter mechanism does not operate.
Internally, setting the Regulator to A disconnects the carriage shift driving dog so that the carriage will remain stationary. With the multiplier set to 1, there will be no movement of the racks on the tens cycle. On the units cycle, the value in the setting mechanism will be multiplied by 1 and added to the accumulator.
The motor-driven machine has a lever (at the rear of the multiplier panel) that locks the multiplier lever at 1 and engages the automatic keyboard-clearing mechanism at the end of each cycle.

Subtraction
Subtraction is the same as addition, except that the differentials drive the register in the opposite direction. If the initial value for subtraction is not already present in the accumulator (as a result of a previous calculation), it can be entered manually using the twirler knobs.

Division
The division is performed by the usual method of repeated subtraction, but with the advantage that multiple subtractions can be performed in a single operation.
The carriage is first cleared and returned to the right, and the Regulator is set to D. The dividend is set in the accumulator using the twirlers, starting one place from the left-hand end (to allow for the automatic carriage shift). The divisor is set on the left-hand side of the sliders or keyboard.
The operator estimates the number of times the divisor can be subtracted from the dividend by comparing the initial digits of each, then sets the multiplier lever to the estimate and turns the crank. At the completion of the cycle, the number set on the multiplier lever appears in the counter as the first digit of the quotient, the product of the quotient digit and the divisor has been subtracted from the accumulator, and the carriage has been moved one place to the left. The process is repeated until sufficient digits have been obtained.
The efficiency of division on the Millionaire depends on the skill of the operator in estimating the quotient digits, as much time can be lost in correcting a poor estimate.
If the estimate is too high, an overdraft will occur and the bell will ring. In order to cancel the excess subtraction, the operator has to change the Regulator to Addition, set the multiplier to 1, turn the crank until the overdraft is cleared, then change the Regulator back to Division, and continue on.
If the estimate is too low, there is no warning bell. In preparing the next estimate, the operator must be alert to observe that the divisor is greater than the dividend, and then follow a similar process to perform an extra subtraction.
As an aid to less skilled operators, a chart of 1-to-9 times 1-to-99 is fastened inside the lid of the machine, with a pair of sliding metal cursors and a set of instructions for a purely mechanical method of estimation. It is still possible for occasional errors to be made due to differences in the third places.

Let’s examine the most important parts of the internal mechanism of the machine.

General arrangement (see the nearby photo)
This view shows the general arrangement of the machine with the keyboard and carriage removed.
The racks are mounted left-to-right at the center rear of the machine, with the cross shafts at right angles above them. There are ten racks and one cross-shaft for each slider or keyboard column. The carriage register travels right-to-left above the differentials near the center of the machine.
The multiplier body and its controlling mechanisms are mounted along the left-hand side, with the main drive mechanism on the right. The camshaft across the front controls the sequencing of the machine operations, according to the setting of the Regulator.

The basic mechanism
There are ten sliding racks mounted horizontally at the rear of the machine. The movement of the racks is picked up by a pinion on a cross-shaft, and is transferred through the bevel gears to the register dial in the carriage.
The cross-shafts correspond to the columns of the setting mechanism. The racks correspond to the numbers set on the sliders (or keyboard). The distance moved by each rack is the product of the rack number and the setting of the multiplier lever, as determined by the multiplication table for the tens and units separately.
For example, setting a slider to 7 will engage its pinion with rack number 7. Setting the multiplier lever to 6 will cause rack 7 to move 4 places during the tens cycle, and 2 places during the units. (All of the other racks will also move according to the six-times table, regardless of whether they are needed or not).
Reversing the movement for subtraction is done by sliding the double “differential” gear along the cross shaft to drive the register’s bevel gear from its opposite side. The differential gear moves to a central or neutral position to disengage the register while the racks are being returned to their home position.

The multiplier mechanism
The multiplier mechanism controls the movements of the racks in accordance with the multiplication table and the setting of the multiplier lever. The multiplication table contains the products of single digits up to 9 x 9. It is divided into two halves to handle the tens and units of the results separately. The values in each table are represented mechanically in a multiplier body by pins or steps of varying lengths. In operation, the multiplier body is positioned vertically and horizontally to bring the appropriate rows and columns into alignment with the left-hand ends of the racks. It is then pulled to the right by the drive mechanism, moving the racks according to the lengths of the selected pins.
The base of the multiplier body is a block of brass measuring. Nine pairs of stepped plates are set vertically into the block to supply the tens and units values for each of the nine racks. The tens and units plates are arranged alternately so that each set is on centers to align with the ends of the racks. Either set can be selected by sliding the block sideways. The inactive plates align with the spaces between the racks. The plates are divided into 9 horizontal rows, corresponding to values 1 to 9 of the multiplier. The multiplier lever lifts the selected row into alignment with the ends of the racks. The length of the plate or pin at each grid position is the product of the rack number and the row number, for the tens and units separately. Each lengthwise step is 4mm, corresponding to a rack movement of exactly one tooth.

The slider mechanism
The slider mechanism is built on a brass panel. The sliders are 20mm apart and move through 9 steps of 7.5 mm (the same as the cross-shaft and rack spacings). The sliders are held in the set position by flat detent springs which engage with grooves cut into the underside of the plate.
The brass selector forks straddle the cross-shaft pinion in two directions, holding the selector arm vertical and allowing the pinion to be moved into engagement with any of the ten racks.
The numeral wheels along the front of the plate provide a straight-line readout of the slider setting. Each wheel is driven by a perforated steel band which loops between a toothed pulley at the front and an idler at the rear of the panel. The band is attached to the upper end of the selector arm.

The H. W. Egli company went on to develop an automatic division machine (MADAS) in 1913, and a full-keyboard rotary calculator (the Portable MADAS) in 1931. Design details from Steiger’s original patents can still be seen in the MADAS calculators of the 1960s. Millionaire was described in many articles, e.g. see the November 1906 issue of American Machinist magazine.

Biography of Otto Steiger and Hans Egli

Strangely, little is known about the creators of this remarkable mechanical calculating machine—Otto Steiger and Hans Egli.

For Otto Steiger (1858-1923) we only know that he was a Swiss engineer from St. Gallen, who lived in Munich around 1890 when designed his remarkable calculating machine.

Hans Walter Egli was born in 1862 in Kirchberg, canton of St. Gallen. We know that he was an engineer and friend of Steiger and also lived in Munich in the early 1890s, where in 1893 he established a company with his name (H.W. Egli A.G.) and started manufacturing this extremely complex device. The first three trial models were built in the precision mechanics workshop of Falter & Sohn, Munich, then in 1895 four machines were built in the Uhrenfabrik in Schwenningen, and in 1896 Egli started his own workshop on Maistraße 4 in Munich and produced the first marketable series of 12 units. Initially, the machine was named Excelsior, but later the name Millionaire was chosen. In 1898 Egli returned to his fatherland and created a workshop in the center of Zurich, Gotthardstrasse 32.

Millionaire remained in production for almost 40 years, but around 1908 it became obvious, that a new kind of machine, smaller and lighter, was a necessity. A new design was made for a calculating machine, centered on stepped drums, in 1911. The mechanism is in the general style of the Thomas Arithmometer. Production of this machine began in 1914, known as MADAS (an acronym for Muliplicier Automat Dividieren Addieren Subtrahieren). A certain number of models appeared between 1914 and 1922. These models were less heavy than the Millionaire, but still pretty large to be carried.

Hans Egli was a holder of another US patent (No. 602937) from 1898 for cleaning device for gun-barrels. The witness of this patent was namely his friend Otto Steiger, and obviously, Steiger continued to work together with Egli for decades.

Hans Walter Egli was married and had a son—Friedrich. He died in 1923 in Zurich.

The foundation of the calculating machine industry in Germany, one of the leading industries of its kind for several decades afterward, was laid in the second half of the 1870s by two young German engineers—Kurt Dietzschold (1852-1922) and Arthur Burkhardt (1857–1918), in Glashütte (a small town in Sächsische Schweiz-Osterzgebirge, which is considered as the birthplace of German watchmaking industry).

In 1873 Kurt Dietzschold, then a student in Mechanical Engineering at Technischen Hochschule in Karlsruhe, visited the Vienna World Exhibition, where he saw and was fascinated by Thomas de Colmar calculating machine. Two years later, in 1875, already a mechanical engineer, he decided to create his own calculating machine, with a calculating mechanism based on a relatively new type of mechanism—the so-called Schaltwerk mit Schaltklinke (rear derailleur with switching latch or switching pawl). The switching latch mechanism is described first time by Leupold in 1727 and was later used very successfully in Hamann’s machines.

In 1876 Dietzschold was invited to come to Glashütte and to work for the newly founded company Strasser & Rohde, a workshop for the construction of computing machinery, precision equipment, and pendulum clocks (later Dietzschold became a co-owner and head of the company). In Glashütte Dietzschold continued his work on the calculating machine, and by 1877 he managed to produce three copies of his machine and gave up one of them to the Royal Prussian Statistical Office for testing. However, the statistical office found that the machine did not operate to their full satisfaction. That’s why Dietzschold asked for help from another engineer and one of his most gifted university schoolmates from Karlsruhe—Gotthilf Robert Arthur Burkhardt, who was then serving his time in the army.

Arthur Burkhardt came to Glashütte in October 1878, but the next year 1879 his friend Kurt Dietzschold decided to accept the proposal to become a director of Österreichischen Uhrmacherschule in Karlstein and left the town. In the same year, Burkhardt founded the first specialized factory for calculating machines in Germany—Glashütter Rechenmaschinenfabrik Arthur Burkhardt and thus laid the foundation for the calculating machine industry in Germany.

Burkhardt decided to abandon the design of Dietzschold and returned to the classical stepped-drum system of Leibniz and Thomas de Colmar, changing the setting and transfer system of the machine to the stepped-drum system. The production of the first model of the machine (so-called Model A) was started in 1880 (see the photo below), but in small numbers. The real serial production of the Burkhardt arithmometer did not start until around 1885, because there was hardly any demand in Germany until then.

Burkhardt’s Model A calculating machine (Serial Nr. 7137, from the end of 1890s)The Burkhardt Arithmometer (sometimes known as a Glashütte machine because of where it was made) has overall measurements: 10.5 cm x 52 cm x 21 cm, and weight about 10 kg. It has a brass top plate painted black and brass and steel mechanism that both fit snugly in a wooden case. Six (or eight) German silver levers move to set numbers. The operating crank is to the right of the levers, and an addition & multiplication/subtraction & division lever is to their left. The operating crank folds down so that the lid closes. At the far left is a compartment with a slate cover.

Behind the levers is a carriage with an 8(9)-window revolution register and a 14(16)-window result register. Both registers have thumbscrews for setting numbers. Each window of the revolution register shows the digits from 0 to 9 in black, and from 1 to 8 in red. A bell sounds when the crank has been turned too often in subtraction and a negative number results. It is intended especially for use in division. A knob on the right side of the machine clears the revolution register, and another knob on the left side clears the result register. When these knobs are in use, brass bars extend out the sides of the carriage. Holes for decimal markers are between the levers and between the windows of the registers, but the machine has no decimal markers.

A piece of wood hinged to the back of the case of the machine can be released so that the instrument slopes toward the operator. A panel in the bottom of the case slides across to reveal the brass stepped drums.

A number of machines were produced for government authorities, insurance companies, and the like, but the demand for such machines was still so insignificant, that Burkhardt had to turn to the manufacture of other articles and, in fact, had to leave Glashütte for Braunschweig for several years (during which time he was active in an entirely different line—construction of a complex harp). He returned to Glashütte in 1885 and again devoted his time to the manufacture of calculating machines. In 1892 the number of sold machines of Burkhardt reached 500.

In 1895 Burkhardt made successful business cooperation with Hugo Bunzel (1852-1908), a painter and businessman from Prague. Bunzel not only sold Burkhardt’s machines but also launched his own version of the device under the name Bunzel Rechenmaschine.

In 1909 the wooden box was replaced by a cast iron casing and Model D and Model G were released (see the nearby photo).

In 1913 were released three new models—K, C, and E (see the photo of Model E below), which remained in production until the end of the 1920s.

Burkhardt is generally regarded as the founder of the calculating machine industry in Germany, and in the course of years, he managed to keep improving his product (but he never patented it, although Hugo Bunzel took out three patents in Austria-Hungary and Germany). The Burkhardt Arithmometer obtained front places and medals on national, international, and world fairs and was produced up to 1929 when the factory in Glashütte was closed (In 1920, not long after Burkhardt’s death, his firm merged with a company in the same city to form Vereinigte Glashütter). The later successful calculating machines Saxonia and Archimedes were based on the construction of the Burkhardt Arithmometer.

Biography of Arthur Burkhardt

Gotthilf Robert Arthur Burkhardt was born on 24 January 1857, in Apolda, a town in central Thuringia, Germany.

As a boy, Burkhardt was encouraged by his father to work on warp knitting machines and was proficient in this subject. In the middle 1870s, he studied mechanical engineering at the University of Karlsruhe, where he met his elder fellow student Kurt Dietzschold. In 1878, after completing his military service, Burkhardt was invited by Dietzschold to come to Glashütte and to work together with him on improving the computing machine developed by Dietzschold. When Dietzschold followed the call to head the Karlstein Watchmaking School in Austria in 1879, Arthur Burkhardt stayed in Glashütte to continue working on the project.

In 1880 Burkhardt married Johanna Louise Antonie Lange (born 22 June 1858—died 14 August 1914), a daughter of Ferdinand Adolph Lange (1815-1875), a famous German watchmaker and mayor of Glashütte (interestingly, Lange was an apprentice of Joseph Thaddéus Winnerl, the manufacturer of Arithmaurel).

Burkhardt temporarily stopped working on his computing machine in 1883 and moved to Braunschweig. In the newly created Society for the Construction of Double Pedal Harps, he was responsible for the drive mechanism and mechanics.

Burkhardt served the municipality as a city council for several years. From 1890 to 1896 he was a member of the supervisory board of the German watchmaking school in Glashütte. He was a member of the Association of German Engineers, the German Museum in Munich, the Professional Association for Precision Mechanics, and the German Society for Mechanics and Optics. He was awarded the First Class Knight’s Cross of the Royal Saxon Order of Albrecht. The Burkhardt Arithmometer achieved top places and medals at national, international, and world exhibitions.

In 1909 the son of Burkhardt, the engineer Erich Burkhardt joined the company management. After the death of his father in 1918, he became the new owner.

Arthur Burkhardt died on 21 July 1918, at the age of 61, and was buried in the Glashütte cemetery.

At the end of the 1770s, the Württemberg pastor and genius engineer Philipp Matthäus Hahn hired for his workshop in Kornwestheim as an apprentice the young Franconian Johann Christoph Schuster (1759-1823). Schuster remained in Hahn’s workshop for two and a half years, then in 1785 he married his sister Maria Katharina Jacobina and started his own workshop.

Just like his mentor Hahn, Schuster became a very good engineer and after the early death of Hahn in 1790 he continued his deed, manufacturing quite a few clocks and calculators, improving Hahn’s designs. To the present time survived three of Schuster’s mechanical calculating machines and four clocks.

Schuster commenced his first calculating machine according to Hahn’s design in 1789 (probably under the supervision of Hahn), and it was completed in Uffenheim in 1792 (Hahn had died two years earlier). From 1805 Schuster developed his own calculating machine in Ansbach (four-species machine, relay roller principle), which is also based on Hahn’s design but is more compact and easier to use. It was completed in 1820 and can be seen now in the collection of the Deutsches Museum in Munich (just like the first Schuster calculating machine), bought in a Christie’s auction in 1993 for 17.5 million DM. In 1822 Schuster completed his third and last calculating machine, which is now in the Arithmeum Museum in Bonn. All his calculators are still working perfectly today. The first calculator has 12 digital positions, the second has 9 digital positions, the third has 10 digital positions.

The first calculating machine of Johann Christoph Schuster (see the upper image) is a 12-place brass and steel device with dimensions: 29.5 cm diameter x 10.8 cm high, weight: 8.1 kg, made 1789-1792 in Uffenheim. The machine consists of 1025 handcrafted individual parts (including gears, levers, pawls, and springs).

The second calculating machine of Schuster (see the lower image) is much smaller: it is a 9-place device with dimensions: 18.5 x 21 cm, weight: 4 kg, made 1805-1820 in Ansbach (after its completion in 1821, it was acquired by the Bavarian state for 1000 guilders and exhibited in the Polytechnic Collection, which has existed since 1822).

Its construction is basically the same as the first machine, but it has an improvement on the setting mechanism, where the racks are similar to Müller‘s calculating machine from 1783, and are moved using rotary knobs.

The third calculating machine of Johann Christoph Schuster (see the upper image) is similar to the second. The ten digits of the setting mechanism are operated with knurled nuts, whereby the setting of a number can be checked in a control mechanism with dials. The result mechanism and the revolution counter are located in the central, rotating part of the machine, they are each ten digits. The larger enameled dials belong to the result mechanism, and the smaller ones to the revolution counter. The black and red digits in the result set are intended for multiplication and division, respectively (red digits present complementation to 9 of black digits, e.g. over black 5 is inscribed red 4). There is a corresponding label next to the units: “Roth Subtr: u: Div: Black Add: u: Mult:” (in English: Red for subtraction and division; Black for addition and multiplication.)

The following text is engraved on the setting ring: “The numbers on the discs are the direction for the type of calculation”. The position values ​​of the result work are engraved as follows: One, ten, hundred, thousand, 10 thousand, 100 thousand, million, 10 million, 100 million, 1000 million. For each of the two places, there is a direct setting using knurled nuts; these also serve to reset the relevant place. The inner unit, which can be rotated for the decimal shift, is fixed by means of a latch. The crank may only be turned in one direction (clockwise). The respective arithmetic position of the revolution counter is indicated by a pointer. The main mechanical devices, including staggered rollers (stepped drums) and the two-stage tens transfer, correspond to those of Hahn’s construction.

Biography of Johann Christoph Schuster

Johann Christoph Schuster was born on 8 October 1759 in Westheim (Middle Franconia, Bavaria). He was the son of Lorentz Schuster (died 1785), a local farmer, and Anna Elisabetha Fröhlich (died 1762).

We don’t know anything about his childhood, but around 1777 he was bound apprentice to Philipp Matthäus Hahn, a pastor and owner of a mechanical workshop in Kornwestheim. Schuster remained in Hahn’s workshop for two and a half years, then returned to his father’s farm, but continued his occasions with machines, keeping a connection with his mentor. In 1785 Schuster married Maria Katharina Jacobina (1759–1812), a half-sister of Hahn. They had three sons (two of them died early) and five daughters.

After his father’s death in 1785 Schuster took over his farm and also opened in the village a workshop in which he made clocks, sundials, earth and celestial globes, and calculating machines. From 1786 he was a freelance watchmaker, first in his native Westheim and then in Uffenheim. Schuster moved to Ansbach in 1797 and became a master member of the local watchmaker’s guild and received permission to work as a “mechanic and watchmaker” in Ansbach, Uffenheim, and Erlangen. He ran a workshop in Ansbach, the seat of Hohenzollern princes (known as margraves), and stayed there working as a mechanic and court watchmaker until his death.

Besides the above-mentioned calculators, four other masterpieces of Schuster survived to our time: two pocket watches (now in Württembergisches Landesmuseum Stuttgart and Stadtmuseum Ansbach) and two double globe clocks (in Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon Dresden, and in a private collection).

Johann Christoph Schuster died on 7 September 1823 in Ansbach.

In 1767 the pastor (and self-taught genius engineer) of Onstmettingen village in Württemberg—Philipp Matthäus Hahn designed, and together with his friend and local schoolmaster Philipp Gottfried Schaudt constructed a big brass and iron astronomical clock, presented to Duke Karl Eugen, the Herzog of Württemberg, who admired the inventor and ordered a larger machine for the Library of Ludwigsburg. At that time Hahn engaged as an apprentice and journeyman a young successor of the famous local family of blacksmiths Sauter—Johann-Jakob Sauter (1743-1805), who was a student of Schaudt, and his relatives, deaf blacksmiths and watchmakers Johann Sauter (1723–1786) and Paulus Sauter (1732–1794), taught Schaudt how to work with brass and steel.

Later Sauter assisted Hahn in creating his calculating machines also, because, after the death of the pastor in 1790, Sauter not only established himself as а past-master of clocks and balances but continued his occasions with calculating devices and created two remarkable calculators, similar to Hahn’s adding machine and Hahn’s circular calculating machine. In fact, we are not sure what is the exact participation of the abovementioned Johann-Jakob Sauter in the creation of these two calculators, because two of his sons (he had six of them) were also named Johann (Johann-Jakob Sauter Jr. (born 1770), and Johann Ludwig Sauter (born 1780)), they also became very good watchmakers and technicians and continued the activities of their father.

Sauter’s adding machine

In the collection of Science Museum, London, is included an adding machine (see the photo below), which probably was commenced by Johann Jakob Sauter Sr. at the end of 1790s, but finished around 1820 in Esslingen by one of his sons: Johann Jakob Sauter Jr. or Johann Ludwig Sauter. Napoleonic wars from the beginning of the 19th century strongly affected Württemberg, so the members of the Sauter family scattered all around Europe, some of them moving north in the vicinity of Stuttgart.

Sauter’s adding machine (in fact, with some additional efforts the device can be used for subtraction, multiplication, and division also) is quite similar to Hahn’s adding machine (which in turn has certain similarities to Pascaline), although far more ornate in appearance. The original stylus for moving the number wheels is preserved and shown in the photo below.

It was a stylus-operated 7-positional adding device. The box is carried by five lions, thus the machine seems to float above its base. Sauter used star-shaped gear wheels (often found in repeating watches) at the upper row of his calculating machine. The tens transfer is implemented by a single tooth that hits a crescent-shaped transfer rocker. As a result, it is moved slightly further so that its end can reach the next position and turn the next star-shaped gear wheel one position further. Interestingly, this calculator is the first machine that has a reset device for the revolution counter, by means of a rectangular strip with teeth at the bottom of the device. The Arithmeum Museum in Bohn, Germany, created a replica of the London device and published a very good animated presentation of this device.

Sauter’s circular calculating machine

It is believed that this especially impressive and aesthetically appealing mechanical calculator for all four arithmetic operations was built by Johann Jakob Sauter around 1796. Only one example of the device survived to our time, and it is kept in Gothenburg City Museum (see the photo below).

It is believed that Johann Jakob Sauter sold this mechanical calculator around 1804 to the Swedish royal house for 1000 krones (a huge sum for the time). Then in 1808, Johann Jakob Sauter (obviously Jr., not Sr., who died in 1805) received the right to run the manufacture of watches, etc. in Stockholm, accepting the position of royal mechanic.

The device is made of brightly colored brass and English steel and has a round form with dimensions of 7½ inches wide, and 2 inches high. There is a plate with engraved text: “Maschine / ohne nachzudenken / geschwind und sicher / damit rechnen zu können / von Sauter in Esslingen”, in English: Machine to calculate swiftly and safely without thinking by Sauter of Esslingen. The device has a wooden base with brass details, 5 brass lion paws, and a drawer.

On the right horizontal plate are mounted 3 rows of enameled number plates (display discs), 9 in each row. The innermost small discs are denoted by the 10 digits from 0 to 9, the middle discs show these digits 2 times, black in larger and red in smaller range (red digits present complementation to 9 of black digits, e.g. over black 5 is inscribed red 4). Black digits are used for addition and multiplication, while red digits are used for subtraction and division.

The entire upper plate, with all these discs, can be rotated around the center of the machine, by means of the arm standing next to the crank, which in the drawing is denoted by A. The rotation of the upper plate by means of arm A takes place only on multiplication and division.

The inner 2 rows of number plates can be turned back and forth by means of a small button (input pin), on which it may be possible to place each desired number under the open sheet metal windows. And since each sheet has 9 number plates, it is clear that on this machine each number can be produced up to a million. For the convenience of counting, the value of each digit is prescribed below its plate, whether it is tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.

In the center of the machine, crank C is provided with several devices and a small bell, screwed on by means of a screw nut. This crank can only be turned to the right, and since it always has to stand still in a certain place, when you want to count the numbers in the windows or want to turn the plate, then on a fixed piece placed on the surface is an elevation and end hook, on which the crank must rest, which therefore has a spring under the handle or button, in order to be able to raise and release it slightly before turning.

Sauter equipped his calculating machine with several indicator bells. They ring to show that tens carry has been triggered, which exceeds the highest place, so cannot be displayed, or the crank has been turned too many times on the same number place. In fact, Sauter improved the tens carry mechanism of Hann, moreover, this machine is the first mechanical calculator with an automated zero-setting mechanism, which makes calculating more comfortable and saves time.

The addition is done as follows:
First, you place on the middle row of number plates by means of the buttons or the dedicated arms D and E all on black zeros (resetting), then you set on the outer half-boards a given number (e.g. 2516) using the input pins, as the other digits which stand before or are not needed are all set to zeros. Now you raise the arm C a little and move it around until it reaches the same place again, then the number 2516 appears in the openings or windows on the middle row of numbers. Then you put on the half boards another number (e.g. 629), but so that units always stand under units, tens under tens, and so on: if you now turn the crank around again, the number in the middle window turns into the sum 3145. If more than two numbers are added together, e.g. to the first two numbers another third 1802 must be added, then 1802 must be set on the outer semicircles again and the crank must be turned once more than the sum of all three numbers (4947) becomes visible, in the same way, you can continue with adding many numbers.

Subtraction:
The minuend (e.g. 87950) must be set in red digits under the windows in the middle row of number plates, the subtrahend (e.g. 7058) must be set on the half boards (the others all at zeros), then after a rotation of the crank C, the minuend consisting of red numbers will show the result: 80892.

Multiplication:
If one of the numbers only consists of one digit, e.g. if you want to multiply 1905 by 4, you put the larger number (1905) on the arcs or semicircles, as all the numbers in front of you are set to black zeros, then you turn the crank until the first small board in the innermost row of the number 4 becomes visible, which takes place after 4 rotations, instead of the zeros previously placed on the paintings, and the product 7620 should be visible under the windows. If the smaller number consists of more than one digit, e.g. instead of 4, the multiplier is 24, you first proceed with the 4 as it was described, let all the numbers stand, and push the whole upper plate by means of the arm A while you with the left-hand finger press the button B, so far forward until the little blue steel pointer which shows the small enameled arches, shows the arc denoted by tens. Then you turn the crank again until on the second of the innermost small discs two appear, then on the middle paintings the product of 7620 with 24 namely 45720. The same action also continues when the multiplier has even more digits. Thanks to the implementation of the so-called arithmetic shift, during the multiplication an operator must turn the crank not “multiplier” times (in this case 24), but only “multiplier units”+”multiplier tens”+… times (in this case 2+4=6).

Division:
The dividend, e.g. 1643, is set by means of the red numbers. The divisor 64 is set on the semicircles, both in their proper places, the small number plates and all other preceding digits are set to zero. Now the whole upper plate is turned by arm A and the button so that the highest number of the divisor falls below the highest number of the dividend, and then the crank is turned until the first number in the dividend becomes smaller than the one below. In our example it should occur when the crank has been turned twice, consequently, the first digit of result 2 appears on the small innermost digits, standing red number would be the rest. But if this is greater than the divisor, which in this example the remainder 363 is greater than 64, then the plate is moved by its arm A a little to the left further or so far that the highest number in the divisor has a higher number standing over it and turns the crank again until as long as the upper number becomes smaller than the lower, and the quotient 25 finally appears on the small boards and instead of the dividend, the remainder 43 appears.

The Arithmeum Museum in Bohn, Germany, created a replica of this Sauter’s calculator also and published a perfect animated presentation.

Biography of Johann Jakob Sauter

Sauter family lived in Onstmettingen, a village south of Stuttgart, in the Swabian mountains, for many centuries (the first Sauter is mentioned in 1571). The Sauters were versatile and skilled as farriers and ordnance blacksmiths, building amongst other things balances for rural use. There is a church record from 1650, stating that the village blacksmith Konrad Sauter (b. 1619) and his wife Anna-Maria baptized their daughter Anna (they had 9 children—2 sons and 7 daughters). The next known Sauter was Melchior (1660-1731), who was not only a blacksmith and weapon smith but had also a successful plough leasing business.

In the middle of the 18th century, Sauters turned their attention to the watchmaking business. In 1723 came into the world Johannes Sauter (1723-1786), and as he was born deaf and dumb, and was so frail, that he could never be made into a blacksmith, his father Mathias decided to train him in something not demanding physical power—watchmaking. The same applied to his younger brother, Paulus Sauter (1732-1799), who also was born deaf and dumb. Johannes and Paulus taught watchmaking to the village schoolmaster of Onstmettingen, Philipp Gottfried Schaudt, who in turn transferred the knowledge to his friend Philipp Matthäus Hahn, the son of a local pastor.

Johann Jakob (or Jacob) Sauter was born on 26 April 1743 in Onstmettingen. He was the son of Johannes Sauter (b. 1712) and Anna Barbara Schaeffer (b. 1714). Johann Jakob had two elder brothers: Johannes (b. 4 May 1736 – d. 2 Dec 1803), and Gottfried (b. 8 Jan 1740 – d. 22 Jul 1809).

Johann-Jakob Sauter married Anna Maria Eppler (b. 28 July 1744 – d. 18 Oct 1789) in May 1769 in Duerrwangen, Wuerttemberg. They had six sons and two daughters, all born in Onstmettingen: Johann Jacob Sauter (b. 27 May 1770), Johann Gottfried Sauter (b. 20 Jan 1773), Johannes Sauter (b. 18 Sep 1774), Dorothea Sauter (b. 23 Jan 1776), Rosina Sauter (18 Apr 1778 – 28 Aug 1778), Johann Ludwig Sauter (b. 5 May 1780, Simon Sauter (3 Oct 1784 – 6 May 1831), and Matthaus Sauter (b. 9 Apr 1788). After the death of Anna Maria in 1789, Johann Jakob Sauter married a second time to Anna Rehfuss (7 Nov 1763 – 11 Dec 1855). They had three children: Andreas Sauter (b. 30 Oct 1791 ), Christina Sauter (b. 22 Oct 1794), and Johann Friederich Sauter (5 Oct 1797 – 7 Feb 1799).

We know that Johann Jakob was taught watchmaking by his relatives and was a pupil of the young local teacher Philipp Gottfried Schaudt, who was only four years older than him. In 1867 Hahn and Schaudt hired him as an assistant at their workshop. When in 1769 Hahn invented a new type of balance (with inclination scale), which is still in use today, Sauter assisted in manufacturing, and from that point, balance manufacture has never left the Sauter family (the Sauter family-owned company Kern & Sohn is still existing as a balance manufacturer). When Hahn left the village in 1770, Sauter continued to work with Schaudt, as Schaudt was responsible for mathematics and theory, while Sauter was looking after practical matters.

The next generation of Sauters, the six sons and one (survived) daughter of Johann-Jakob Sauter’s first marriage, all were taught in the field of mechanics, and (at least) four of them (Johann Jakob Sauter Jr., Johannes, Johann Ludwig, and Simon) became excellent engineers. It is known that only Simon remained in Onstmettingen (and took over his father’s workshop after his death), while the other sons moved to France (Strasbourg, Johannes), Russia (S. Petersburg, Johann Jakob), and Sweden (Stockholm, Johann Jakob), and towns around Stuttgart (Johann Ludwig and Johann Jakob).

In the early 1790s, Sauter had a workshop in Kornwestheim, near Stuttgart (interestingly, Hahn also served and had a workshop in Kornwestheim from 1770 until 1881), then in the late 1790s moved to Esslingen, near Stuttgart.

Little is known about Johann Jakob Sauter Jr. In the 1790s he worked (probably together with his father) in Kornwestheim and Esslingen, then around 1800 moved for several years to St. Petersburg, Russia, then relocated to Stockholm, Sweden, titled as a royal mechanic. He married Maria Catharina Griesin in 1791 in Kornwestheim, and they had four sons: Amand Andreas Sauter (b. 23 Apr 1796), John Amandus Sauter (b. 23 Mar 1798 – d. 20 Apr 1848), Johann Eberhardt Sauter (b. 8 Dec 1800), and Ferdinand Carl Sauter (b. 24 Dec 1802).

Johann-Jakob Sauter Sr. died on 13 December 1805 in Onstmettingen.

On 25 September 1866, Samuel J. Kelso of Detroit, Michigan, obtained a patent (US patent №58347, assigned to himself and James Edgar, of New York) for a ciphering machine. The calculating machine of Kelso was a simple adding device, quite similar to one of the machines of the French inventor David Roth. Besides the patent, nothing survived from this machine, so it obviously remained only on paper.

The calculator of Kelso (see the nearby patent drawing) can be used for adding, subtracting, and multiplying numbers of any desired magnitude with the greatest ease and facility. For adding and subtracting a series of wheels are used, which revolve on suitable pins projecting from the undersurface of a plate of sheet metal or other suitable material. Each of the sheets is provided with ten or a multiple of ten holes or cavities, and the face-plate is provided with semicircular slots, and with numbers from 1 to 9 on the convex sides of said slots for adding, and from 9 to 1 on the concave sides for subtracting, and a suitable carrying mechanism is combined with the wheels in such a manner that whenever one of the wheels is turned for ten holes or cavities the next succeeding wheel will turn for one cavity.

The carrying mechanism is composed of a series of compound pawls, each constructed of two rods, one of which is hinged to the undersurface of the face-plate, and provided with a nose or cam, to be acted upon by a pin projecting from the appropriate wheel, whereas the other rod is hinged, to the loose end of the first rod, and provided with a tooth, which catches in the next succeeding wheel in such a manner that whenever the pin of the first wheel passes the nose or cam of the main rod the second wheel is turned one tooth. A rod sliding in suitable sockets on the undersurface of the face-plate serves to throw the carrying mechanism out of gear so that each of the wheels can be turned independently of the others.

The multiplying device consists of a carriage, which is fitted on the case containing the adding and subtracting wheels.

By the application of the disengaging-slide q the operation of setting the wheels back to 0 is materially facilitated, and much time is saved in the operation of the machine.

Biography of Samuel J. Kelso

Samuel John Kelso was born in 1834 in Ireland (or Scotland), to Henry Kelso (b. 1800) and Charlotte L. Kelso (b. 1806). In the early 1850s, the Kelso family lived in Glasgow, Scotland, where Henry Kelso was a teacher, and Samuel used to work as an engineering clerk. Samuel had an elder brother, David (b. 1832), a younger sister, Charlotte (b. 1836), and a brother Josiah (b. 1841).

Samuel John Kelso immigrated to the New World in the late 1850s and settled initially in Quebec, Canada, then in Detroit, Michigan, USA. In the early 1860s, he worked as an agent of the Scottish Amicable Life Assurance Society in Chicoutimi, Saguenay, Canada. In 1867 Kelso married Hannah Roadhouse (1844-1895), a Canadian from Albion, Ontario, and they had six children: Elizabeth (1868-1920), Caroline V. (b. 1870), Belle Clara (1872-1934), Karl W. (b. 1873), Alfred N. (b. 1876), and Walter Rhodes (1882-1948).

Besides the above-mentioned patent for calculating device, Samuel John Kelso was a holder of another US patent (No. 477942 from 1892) for a slip-holder, as well as of a Canadian patent (No. 1121 from 1860) for an “aqua-gravitation engine”.

In 1862 Kelso established the English Commercial School, a High School for boys in Upper Town, Quebec, and in the same year he published a book—”Notes on the Saguenay for Tourists and Others”. In the 1870s and 1880s, he published several books with computation tables, and in 1885 he even founded a company for this purpose—Detroit Publishing Company.

Samuel John Kelso died in 1912 (aged 78) in Detroit and was buried in
Woodmere Cemetery.