On 29 September 1863, one Milton C. Jeffers of New York was granted a patent (US patent No. 40105) for a simple adding device, quite similar to the earlier calculating devices of his compatriots Jabez Burns and John Ballou. In Jeffers’ patent is mentioned, that his device is an improvement of the machine of Joseph Harris from 1861 (US patent No. 31016).
We know almost nothing about the inventor. Milton Clifford Jeffers was born around 1823 and died on 26 October 1896. He used to work as a patent agent and broker and is an assignee and assignor of quite a few machinery patents in the USA and Canada in different areas, let’s mention only: fodder-cutter and corn-husker (US patent No. 74370 from 1868), corn husker (US patent No. 108484 from 1870), panoramic school apparatus (US patent No. 120072 from 1871), attachment for railway cars (US patent No. 234265), and ship ventilator and fog alarm (Canadian patent No. CA6356A).
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 patent drawing of the adding machine of Milton Jeffers
The adding machine of Jeffers is a brass, steel, and paper device with overall measurements: 10 cm x 11.5 cm x 10 cm.
This simple machine (see the nearby patent drawing) is a lever-set adding device, featuring a frame of two brown round end pieces joined by a central shaft and by two handles of brass at the outside. The shaft carries six toothed wheels that may be rotated with the fingers. Each wheel has 30 teeth and is joined to a brass ring on its right (thus implementing a carry mechanism). Around the rim of each ring is a slip of paper with the digits from 0 to 9 printed on it three times. One-third of each ring is covered by a metal piece with a window at the bottom and the digits from 1 to 9 engraved on it.
To enter digits, the operator must rotate wheels forward the distance indicated by these digits. The total appears in the windows.
The carrying processes are being performed by means of the inclined plate attached to the casing, as described in the patent of Joseph Harris.
Joseph Harris’ adding machine (the patent drawing)
Joseph Harris Jr. of Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts, was a prolific inventor from the middle of the XIX century. On 1 January 1861, he patented (US patent No. 31016) a simple adding device, somewhat similar to the earlier devices of Jabez Burns and John Ballou, and an inspiration for the later adding machine of Milton Jeffers.
The adding machine of Harris (see the nearby patent drawing, unfortunately even the patent model didn’t survive to our time) consisted of a series of revolving wheels provided with pins and spring escapements, acting together in connection with an inclined plane.
In order to avoid unnecessary prolixity, the patent drawing presents only three revolving wheels, designated for units (the right-hand wheel), tens (the middle), and hundreds (the left). The same arrangement may be extended to any number of wheels.
The wooden projections (marked with b, b, etc.), resembling cogs are intended only for turning the wheels, by placing the forefinger on them. The graduations of the indices of the wheels and dial are so made, that a projection corresponds with the figure immediately above.
The tens carry mechanism is implemented by means of the springs (marked with a, a, …), each placed halfway in the interval between 0 and 1 on the graduated index of wheels. When a spring comes in contact with an inclined plane (C), it is compressed so that instead of continuing to traverse a circumference outside the pins (n, n, …), it pushes a tens pin (n) one graduation ahead.
Biography of Joseph Harris
Little is known about the inventor—Joseph Harris Jr. from Boston, Mass. Joseph Eustis Harris was born on 31 Dec 1825 in Chelsea, Suffolk County, Massachusetts. He was the second son of Deacon Joseph Harris (1782–1864) and Mary (Shillaber) Harris (1785–1834). Joseph had four brothers (unfortunately three of them died in infancy)—William Harris (1823–1826), Giles David Shillaber Harris (1824–1826), William Giles Harris (1828–1897), and Daniel Shillaber Harris (1834–1835).
Joseph Eustis Harris was a holder of numerous patents for various devices, like a gudgeon (US patent 5452 from 1848), mode of converting reciprocating into a rotary motion (US patent 7902 from 1850), driving circular saw (1853), lamp extinguisher (US patent 11524 from 1854), hand stamp (US patent 13308 from 1855), carpet cleaner (US patent 19465 from 1858), railway car (US patent 29882 from 1960), wheel for vehicles (US patent 272133 from 1883), tire heating furnace (US patent 350131 from 1886), car wheel (US patent 469919 from 1892), apparatus for heating tires (US patent 471704 from 1892), engine (US patent 474557 from 1892). Interestingly, a witness of the Harris’ patent for adding machine was Otis Tufts Jr. (1839–1885), a son of the famous machinist and inventor Otis Tufts (1804–1869), who built printing machines, steam engines, and firefighting equipment and invented the steam pile driver.
Joseph Eustis Harris died on 4 March 1899 (aged 73) in Revere, Suffolk County, Massachusetts.
The patent drawing of David Carroll’s Adding Machine
In February 1876 David Carroll, a self-taught inventor of Spring Creek, Pennsylvania, filed a patent application for an adding machine. The patent was granted on 2 May 1876 US Patent №176833 (see the nearby patent drawing). The machine of Carroll seems like well well-designed and workable device, but obviously never went into production, and only the patent model (see the lower image) survived to the present time (property of Smithsonian National Museum).
The adding device of Carroll was a simple single-column adder (column adders can have two or more result digits, but you can only add into the rightmost digit, and then generally only with the integers one through nine). It was made of wood and metal, with measurements: 10.8 cm x 12 cm x 18 cm.
The mechanical calculator of Carroll is a small nine-key 3 positional adding machine. It has a wooden case with nine metal keys with wooden key covers, arranged in two rows—2 4 6 8 (upper row) and 1 3 5 7 9. There are three wooden numeral wheels visible through a window at the top of the box.
The machine is designed to add single digits up to 999. The effect of the keys is determined by the adjusting screws (marked with G on the patent drawing) on the underside of the machine. The keys are constructed as to length, so that when knobs (H) are pushed down to the top of the case, they turn the wheel the number of teeth, corresponding to the number of the key.
The three registering wheels have on their left side a ring of ten equidistant pins, that are used in carrying. There is a lever at the top of the machine, that can be adjusted to release the number wheels so that they can be turned back to zero using the turn-knob (V) on the left.
There is a fixing mechanism provided, to prevent the main wheel from turning too far when the keys are pressed. It consists of a stop-pawl (I), which engages ratchet-wheel (J) at the moment the pawl (E) stops in the downward movement.
David Carroll was born on 13 May 1828, in the old homestead farm of William Carroll (12 May 1796–24 Dec 1882) and his wife Hannah Slawson-Carroll (30 Jun 1800–8 Jan 1873), located 2 1/2 Miles S.W. of Union City, Erie County, Pennsylvania. David was the third child (of nine) in the family and had four brothers and four sisters.
David’s grandfather, Ferdinand Carroll (1751-1831), in the spring of 1801, embarked after eight weary weeks from Dublin to New Castle, Delaware, in an old war vessel, with his wife Isabella Johnston Carroll (1755-1830) and five sons and four daughters (of twelve children, as two of them died in Ireland, one died of measles during the voyage and was buried at sea). The family and all their earthly possessions came to Union Township on horseback from Pittsburgh in the fall of 1801 and they built their first small home from poles and called it Castle Halsey. William, his youngest son, was to become David’s father.
David Carroll was a diligent schoolboy, always winning prizes. Mathematics was his best subject and he was always far ahead of his classmates. But despite his talent in mathematics, science was his favorite subject.
David’s interests in science and his mechanical aptitude, inherited from his father, led him to become an inventor. He could picture in his mind the dimensions of every separate piece of machinery and how it would look put together. When he was still a boy he conducted perpetual motion studies.
In the US census, David Carroll is listed as a carpenter (the year 1850), farmer (1860 and 1870), and inventor (1880). He married in 1854 to Elizabeth Coventry-Carroll (b. 1832 in England-d. 5 Jun 1891). The family had nine children—Ellen (b. 1855), Jennie Blanche (1860-1947), Rosannah (b. 1862), Etta (b. 1868), Freddie (b. 1870), Hannah (b. 1873), George (1875-1885), Girta May (b. 1878), and Rose A. (1881-1885).
However, David Carroll’s most important invention was not the adding machine, interesting to us, but his Leway ship log, which proved to be invaluable to the steamships on the Great Lakes. At this time the purpose of a ship log was to fix the latitude and longitude of the ship at sea. Until modern technology developed instruments to do this, it was done in clear weather by observing the sun or stars, or by landmarks if the ship was near enough to shore. However bad weather created a serious navigational problem for ships. It caused ships to run slowly, increasing the danger of going onto reefs or rocks or drifting off course.
David Carroll made his Leway ship log with two wheels, lowered down through a pipe in the vessel, reaching about four feet below the bottom of the ship. These wheels were connected to the indicator by wires. The indicator was on deck and had two dials, one for headway and the other for leeway of the drift. The dials had hands that pointed to the distance as clock hands pointed to the time.
After a successful test of his log in 1880, the captain who tested the device was giving a big puff in the Chicago and Buffalo papers, but David had a hard time trying to get the log manufactured. In December 1881, he moved his family to Sheffield, Ohio, in order to work in the lumber business and try to raise more funds to keep his family and his log.
Neither historic nor contemporary logs have David Carroll’s name on them, but his principles are still operating. Every time a Patent log, Chip log, Taffrail log, Forbes log, or Pitometer log is operated by modern mariners, David’s invention gains new momentum.
David Carroll is a holder of several other US and Canadian patents, besides the above-mentioned one for the adding machine: US pat. No. 64628 from 1867 (reissued 1879) for a stump-extractor, US197995, and US303115 from 1884 for a ship’s log, and CA8297A for a nautical log.
David Carroll died on 5 July 1888, in Union City, Erie County, Pennsylvania, and was buried in the local Asbury Cemetery.
He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody. Joseph Heller
Gustav Tauschek, Vienna, 1932
Gustav Tauschek (1899-1945) was a genius self-taught Viennese engineer, with more than 100 patents in Austria, Germany, the USA, and France, mainly in the computing field (from 1922 to 1945) to his credit, who used to work for IBM and who besides the first OCR device, invented also many devices and systems for the punch-card machinery, as well as the magnetic drum-memory.
The Reading Machine (first OCR device) of Gustav Tauschek Many people dreamed of a machine that could read characters and numerals, but it seems the first OCR (Optical Character Recognition) device was developed in the late 1920s by the Austrian engineer Gustav Tauschek, who on 30 May 1928 applied for a patent in Austria (Nr. 116799) for so-called Reading Machine, then in 1929 obtained a patent in Germany and applied for a US patent, followed by Paul Handel who obtained a US patent on OCR (so-called Statistical Machine) in the USA in 1933 (U.S. Patent Nr. 1915993). In 1935 Tauschek also received a US patent on his machine (U.S. Patent Nr. 2026329).
The patent drawing of Reading Machine of Gustav Tauschek
The Reading Machine of Tauschek was a mechanical device, using a template matching with a photodetector (photoelectric cell, marked with 5 on the patent drawing). A picture containing a text passed in front of the reading machine’s window (marked with 1). The comparison device was a disk (or a wheel, marked with 6) (which had holes in the form of letters) rotating from the interior side of the objective lens (3). When images and letter-shaped holes coincided in form, the clockwork rotated the printing drum to the required letter, and this letter is printed on paper.
The Magnetic Drum of Gustav Tauschek First magnetic drum memory, a magnetic data storage device and an early form of computer memory, which plays an important role in the computer memory development and was widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s, was invented by Gustav Tauschek in the late 1920s. In October 1929 Tauschek applied for US patent, and received it in 1932 (see US patent 1880523 and the lower patent drawing).
During the years 1926–1930 Tauschek worked for Rheinmetall in Sömmerda, Germany, where he developed a complete punched card-based accounting system (which however was never mass-produced), as well as the above-mentioned OCR device and magnetic drum.
Tauschek patent drawing of magnetic drum memory device (1929)
In its most basic form, magnetic drum memory is simply a metal drum or cylinder, coated with a ferromagnetic recording material. Stationary write heads emit an electrical pulse, changing the magnetic orientation of a particle at a given position on the drum. The read heads, which are also stationary, recognize a particle’s orientation as either a binary 1 or 0. Tauschek’s prototype could store 500000 bits across the drum’s total surface for a capacity of about 62.5 KB.
A magnetic digital storage drum memory from 1950s
The principal difference between a drum as described and a modern disk is that on a drum the heads do not have to move to the track to access, as the controller simply waits for the data to appear under the relevant head as the drum turns. In a disk drive, the head takes a certain time, called seek time, to move into place, while the performance of a drum with fixed heads is determined almost entirely by the rotational speed.
As late as 1980, the PDP-11/45 machines that used drums for swapping were still in use at many of the original UNIX sites. In modern-day BSD Unix and its descendants, /dev/drum is the name of the default swap device, deriving from the use of drum secondary-storage devices as a backing store for pages in virtual memory.
The principles at work in magnetic drum memory helped to lead researchers to create another and even more important innovation: the hard disk drive.
Biography of Gustav Tauschek
Gustav Tauschek (1899-1945)
Gustav Tauschek, a self-taught genius engineer and prolific inventor, was born on 29 April 1899, in Fünfhaus, a western district of Vienna, Austria, where his father Adam Tauschek, owned a small draper’s shop. Gustav had two sisters—Anna and Helene.
Gustav was a clever child and in 1913 entered a secondary school (Realschule) in Vienna, but was called up for military service only at the age of 16 in 1915, nevertheless, he was able to complete his school education with the “War Matura” in 1917. After serving at the southern front (Serbia, then in Tyrol), he was taken prisoner of war in Italy in late 1917, and returned to his hometown in August 1919. While in Italy he had the opportunity to attend technical lectures by university professors who were also captured. Returning in Vienna, Tauschek had to give up his plan to start studying technology at Technische Universität Wien for financial reasons, so he continued his self-education.
Luckily, in 1921 Tauschek found a job as a messenger at the Austrian National Bank (Oesterreichische Nationalbank) in Vienna. Here he saw punch card machines and a printing machine for guilloches, the fine patterns on banknotes and securities, which served as an ornament and should make counterfeiting more difficult. Soon Tauschek came up with a whole series of improvements—using parts of a stable construction kit, he built a new guilloche machine. He applied for a patent for it in September 1922 and received it in July 1923 (Austrian patent Nr. 95332). The National Bank acquired the patent and he got some money. It was the first of his many inventions.
At the same time, Tauschek also worked on other patents—improvements to punched card machines, which the bank leased from the International Business Machine Corporation (IBM). Before leaving the Austrian National Bank in 1929, Tauschek received more than 30 patents in the field of punched card technology and its application in the area of office and calculating machines.
In 1925 Rheinmetall company became aware of Tauschek’s patents and hired him to create a series of calculating machines. So, during the years 1925–1930 Tauschek worked also for the Rheinische Metallwaren- und Maschinenfabrik (Rheinmetall) in Sömmerda, Germany, for which he developed a complete punched card-based accounting system. The world economic crisis had broken out, so the system was never mass-produced, but the prototype of that system is currently stored in the archives of the Vienna Technical Museum.
In the spring of 1928, Rheinmetall created a subsidiary company that was assigned to develop new punched card-based machines. In the fall of the same year, the subsidiary was bought by Dehomag, IBM’s German subsidiary, thereby assuring its monopoly on the market. All of Tauschek’s patents went to IBM, as Tauschek himself received the amount of 250000 dollars (the equivalent of almost 4 million today) and a five-year contract for further collaboration. Tauschek sold 169 patents to IBM in his lifetime.
In the mid-1930s Tauschek worked for IBM in New York for five years, but kept silent about his specific work there. His last patent for IBM is a tabulating machine (1940). Initially, Tauschek traveled back and forth between Vienna and New York, but took up residence in Switzerland in 1934.
Tauschek also invented numerous other devices, including an electric typewriter (1927), a motor mower (1927), a payout machine (1928), a machine with visual sensory effect (1930), a machine for handwriting simulation (1935), a snowmobile (1942/43), etc.
Gustav Tauschek married in 1932 Maria Dobris, and they had a son—Gustav.
Tauschek’s initial contract with IBM ran until the end of 1935, and he then set up a private workshop in Weidling, near Vienna, but eventually signed a new contract with IBM. He is said to have lived in Slovakia, where his wife had relatives, during the Second World War. His last patent applications from October 1943 indicate his place of residence in Zürich, Switzerland, where the remarkable engineer and technical wizard Gustav Tauschek died of a pulmonary embolism on 14 February 1945.
The calculator of Nelson (see the lower patent drawing) was a simple single-column adder (column adders can have two or more result digits, but you can only add into the rightmost digit, and then generally only with the integers one through nine) with one output dial. The numbers are entered with five finger keys (marked with B) hinged at b to box A. Each key is provided with a spring a used to return it against the stop board C after depression.
David Nelson’s patent drawing (US patent №28006)
D is a ratchet wheel journaled in the box A and stop board C, and carrying on the upper end of its spindle an index or pointer c, adapted to move over the face of the dial E). The teeth on the periphery of the wheel D are equal in number to the divisions or units on the dial E so that a rotation of the wheel to the extent of a given number of teeth carries the finger of the dial over the same number of divisions or units on the dial.
J, J, are springs provided with friction pads i made to press on the face of the wheel D to prevent its being carried by momentum to a farther extent of rotation than that given it by the lever and pawl F, G. The pressure of the said springs is adjustable by a set screw j. The check pawl I may, if preferred be dispensed with, the friction pads i serving to prevent the retrograde motion of the wheel D.
The index c is constructed with a spring socket so that it may turn with the spindle of the wheel D, yet be free to be set by hand independently of wheel D to any desired position on the dial.
Almost nothing is known about the inventor of this keyboard calculator—David R. Nelson.
He was born in 1835 in Jackson, a small town in Ohio, as the third child of John Nelson (1805-1885) and Mary Polly Nelson, nee McBride (1801-1880). David had an elder brother—Absolom F. Nelson (1830-1920), and a sister—Mary Ann Nelson-Hastings (1832-1874).
The father of David—John Nelson (born 1805 in Virginia, died 16 Feb 1885 in Jackson) was known as “Landlord Nelson”) and was a pioneer settler of Jackson, Ohio. He was a prominent local businessman—a merchant, who kept a store, and owned and conducted “Nelson’s Hotel”, one of the very early taverns, so most probably the young David devised his calculator to assist his father’s business. The mother of David—Mary Polly McBride (born in Vanceburg, Kentucky, on 5 April 1801, died 27 May 1880 in Jackson) was a daughter of John McBride of Ireland and Mary Mitchell of Scioto County, Ohio. Mary Polly married John Nelson on 17 December 1829, and their first child Absolom was born in Sep 1830. Later they had four more children, but two of them died in infancy.
David R. Nelson died on 5 April 1890, in Jackson, Ohio.
Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. Saint Francis of Assisi
Moses Pullen (1819-1896)
Around 1870 Moses Pullen, 50 years old teacher of Southwick (near Shoreham, Sussex), commenced his work on an adding machine, with the help of his teenage son William. On 4 June 1874, British Patent No. 1948 was granted to Moses and William Pullen, of High Bentham, near Settle, in the county of York, for an invention of a keyboard one-column adder, called by the inventors A new or improved machine for adding together and ascertaining the total of a column or number of figures. The patent was sealed on 1 December of that year, the same month Pullen applied for a patent in France, and it was granted (patent FR105997) on 1 March 1875.
In 1875 a company, The Bentham Calculating Machine Company Limited, was established for the manufacturing of the machine. The 5 June 1875, issue of the Lancaster Guardian newspaper reported a message, that the list of applications for shares in the company would close on 16 June, the capital being £10000 in 2000 shares of £5 each, and a copy of the Prospectus (advertisement) was published. However, it seems only a limited number of devices had been produced, and to our time is known to survive only one of them, now in the collection of Arithmeum Museum in Bonn, Germany (see the image below). Arithmeum even uploaded a 3D animated video made by two students of Computer Science, showing the functionality of the machine in detail and also giving an impression of its operation and aesthetics (see Arithmeum video on Pullens machine).
Pullens Patent Calculating Machine in Arithmeum Museum in Bonn, Germany
The Prospectus emphasized that the machine of Pullen was simple in construction, light, portable and elegant, and it was adaptable to any particular business. It was suitable to those to whom the process of addition is laborious and irksome, and it will not fail to be noticed that a little boy or girl may be employed to add up or check the totals of journals, ledgers, etc. One can only agree that there are some persons whose brains are so active that nothing can exceed the rapidity with which they run up a column of figures, but even these soon tire, and their energies are impaired by excessive use, and they would act wisely in availing themselves of the assistance these Machines afford.
Three forms of the machine were to be made, costing from (around) half a guinea to four guineas, aiming at different customers. Depending on the customer’s ability to pay, they could choose between various sorts of high-grade wood for the base plate. The machine’s other components also illustrate that the aesthetics of their design played a vital part, as all the mechanics are visible, which makes using the machine especially appealing.
The Lancaster Guardian invited a personal inspection of the works, and the newspaper’s correspondent named Rambler took this up and reported: A manufactory for the making of calculating machines is a novel undertaking in a village like Bentham…
Weaving, hat and nail-making, and other local trades have passed away, and the only businesses which have sprung up since their decadence are the Bentham Gas Works, and Messrs. Pullen and Procter’s manufactory of calculating machines.
The machine, which was invented by Mr. Pullen and Son, occupied about five years in bringing it to its present perfection. The patent of it, which embraces Great Britain and Ireland, the Isle of Man, Belgium, the Channel Islands, and France, and all her colonies, was sealed on the 14 of December, 1874. In a week or two the patent, works etc., will pass into the hands of a limited liability company.
The newly erected manufactory for the making of calculating machines is on the margin of the Little North Western line on the south side of Bentham station. The dimensions of the building within are 30 yards by 15 yards. The building consists of first and second floors, with six lights in each room. The working machinery on the first floor is a horizontal engine of four horse power nominal, by Tangye, and Bros., three turning lathes, punching and stamping machines, a circular saw, grinding stone, a brass plate polisher etc. The circular saw, though small, has an astonishing cutting power, and it quickly severs solid cylindrical or flat pieces of brass. The punching machine is an ingenious apparatus for making half or any other defective hole which could not be done by the hand.
The calculating machine is a neat instrument fixed on an ornamental frame, made either of mahogany, rosewood or walnut. The frames are either square or oval. There are three kinds of calculating machines, all under one patent, as the principle is the same in them all, and the difference is in their arrangement. The price of the first is four guineas, the second two guineas, and the third 10s. 6d. The last named machine is an exceedingly simple arrangement, and it is very suitable for small shopkeepers. The machines are all fitted up with a neat polished cedar-box. The works, in addition to the proprietors, give employment to two men and two boys. The invention of the machine, and its neat and portable construction, reflect great mechanical skill on the part of the inventors, and as a reward for their ingenuity and perseverance one hopes that the undertaking will be one of marked success.
Let’s examine the calculating machine of Pullen, using the provisional patent specification and the drawing from British patent No. 1948 from 4 June 1874 (see the drawing below):
The Bentham Calculating Machine of Moses and William Pullen, the drawing from British patent (GB1948)
The object of this invention is to add together and calculate or ascertain the total of a column or number of figures, whether such column or number of figures relates to abstract or concrete qualities. For this purpose we employ a dial or table mounted on an axis capable of revolving at intervals. This dial is divided on the surface into compartments, which are numbered decimally or in degrees of ten. We also employ another and smaller dial, which is divided into ten parts, and marked with the number of the units. Affixed to the axis of the first mentioned dial or table is a toothed wheel having the same number of teeth as there are divisions on the dial, and on the axis of the smaller dial is a either worm or pinion wheel gearing into the aforesaid wheel; also on the said axis is a ratchet wheel, into which enters a catch mounted on the dial for purpose herein-after explained. There is also on this axis a pinion which gears with a toothed rack attached to a slidable plate or bed capable of being moved backwards and forwards by the hand of the operator, the length of stroke being regulated by a series of slide stops or keys numbered in a manner corresponding with the units on the small dial; or instead of the slidable plate the slide stops or keys may be made of different lengths, or to more different distances when operated upon according to the number which each represents, and so act upon and turn the dials, but we prefer the slidable plate arrangement.
The mechanism may be provided with a suitable cover having apertures through which the figures on the dial can be seen.
The method of working is as follows: Suppose it is required to add together the abstract numbers five and nine the operator passes down the key marked five, and draws back the toothed rack as far as the catch of when the figure five will appear through the aperture for the smaller dial. He then pushes in the rack to its original position, the axis and pinion turning round but the dial remaining stationary by reason of the arrangement of the ratchet wheel and catch. He then removes his finger from the key number five, and places it upon key number nine, and repeats the operation of drawing back the rack, and the result will be that the small dial will have performed one revolution and a part of another; also by means of the worm or pinion on the axis of this dial the larger dial will have been moved round to the extent of one tooth or division; therefore the number indicated by the large dial will be ten, and that by the smaller dial will be four; the total indicated by the two figures on the two dials being fourteen, and so on with any number or series of figures in succession. Whatever be the number of figures added together the result is always given by adding together the two figures or numbers indicated or shewn by the two dials.
We also construct a very simple apparatus on a similar principle to the foregoing of two discs of cardboard or other substance mounted on the same axis, the upper disc being smaller than the lower, the lower and larger disc being mounted with the units from one to sixty, and the upper with the units from one to ten, the figures only occupying one-sixth of its circumference. Opposite each number on the larger disc is a hole, into which a pin can be inserted, by which the disc can be drawn round on its axis to a certain place or fixed point where the total of the series of successive figures are indicated.
The sealed patent specification from December 1874, was in much greater detail, referring to a large accompanying sheet of drawings. It explained that the dial of cardboard could be divided radially into 77 compartments or divisions, which radial divisions are divided concentrically into three parts. The outer row of divisions contains abstract numbers in tens from ten to seven hundred and sixty. The next inner one contains the amounts in shillings and pence, corresponding to the number of pence indicated by the abstract numbers aforesaid, and on the same principle the inner or third division contains the total of a given number of pounds expressed in quarters and pounds. Other dials could be affixed, denoting lineal, square, cubic or liquid measures.
Biography of Moses and William Pullen
Strangely, little is known about the inventors of this very interesting calculating machine—Moses Pullen and his son William (information found mostly in British national census databases).
Moses Pullen was born in 1819 in Manchester. Nothing is known about his childhood and education, but in 1841 he worked in Bolton as a mechanic. Around this time he married Ann Morris (1818-1881), a local Bolton girl. The family will have a number of children—seven daughters and two sons.
By 1851 Moses Pullen was a National Schools master and Master of the boys’ section of Painswick Free School, Gloucestershire, teaching many poor boys as well as some paying pupils, and remained there for at least ten years. Moses’ son William was born in 1856 in Painswick. In 1861 Moses, still a National Schools master, his wife Ann, his father, seven daughters (born in Lancashire, Cheshire, and Shropshire, so Moses was clearly moving around a good deal for work), and his son William aged 5, were still living in Painswick.
Alexander William Bickerton (1842–1929)
In the early 1860s, Pullen taught science classes in Cotswolds, and there in 1864, his pupil was Alexander William Bickerton (1842–1929, see the nearby image), who later will become a famous New Zealand chemist and astronomer, who described his teacher as one of the finest science masters under whom he ever studied.
Undoubtedly, Moses Pullen was a man far in advance of his time, he presented a curriculum that included science, carpentry, printing, mechanical drawing, land measuring, mapping, chemistry, and practical agriculture. Pullen started evening classes for adults and set up a lending library.
By 1871 the Pullen family was living in Southwick (near Shoreham, Sussex), with five daughters still at home, Moses working as a teacher. At this time William was a pupil teacher living with an elder married brother, a schoolmaster, in Norfolk.
During the above-mentioned events of 1874–1875, Moses was temporary headmaster of Bentham Grammar School (an independent school in Bentham, North Yorkshire), resigning in May 1876.
In 1881 Moses, a widower, was in Leeds, with four unmarried daughters still at home, all five engaged in hosiery manufacture.
In 1891 the census records Moses Pullen in Fixby, Elland area (near Halifax), working as a manufacturer of rugs, still with six family members in his household.
Yet another Fowler, this time the American George B. Fowler (1834-1891), wrote his name in the history of computing devices, after the Englishman Thomas Fowler, the creator of a unique ternary calculating machine in 1840. George Fowler’s machine from 1863 was a simple stylus-operated adding device without a carrying mechanism, which was in serial production in the second half of the 19th century, although in small quantities.
His first patent for adding machine (US patent 39222) George Fowler, living at that time in Chicago, Illinois, got on 14 July 1863. 27 years later, on 15 July 1890, George Fowler received a second patent (US patent 432266) for an improved version of his device. The patent model (located in the Smithsonian Museum, Washington) and several production models of Fowler’s instrument survived to our time.
George Fowler’s adding machine
In the 1860s the machine was advertised in several journals ( e.g. in Scientific American) as the only practical and reliable adding machine in the world 🙂, and was reported to be on the market since 1869, produced by the company of its inventor—Geo. B. Fowler & Co., Chicago, IL (see the nearby photo). Fowler garnered testimonials from lumber dealers, bookkeepers, and insurance companies, and hoped to find agents who would pay substantial sums to market his machine, but there is no indication that this occurred. Later on, Fowler moved to New York and founded a new company—Fowler Adding Machine Co., New York, which produced the device. When launched to the market, the device cost $5. In the 1890s the device was sold for $8 by the Universal Adding Machine Co., under the name Universal Adding Machine. Fowler’s Adding Machine was successfully imitated around the turn of the century in the form of the Locke Adder (US Pat. No. 689680) which was also sold initially for $5 and later for $10. In Europe, the Universal was sold as “Bamberger Omega”, manufactured by the company of Justin Wilhelm Bamberger of Munich, Germany.
The patent drawing of Fowler’s Adder
The adding machine of Fowler (see the nearby drawing from the first patent) was a slide bar adder, operated by pin or pencil. It was a wood and metal device, with measurements: 1 cm x 22.5 cm x 11.5 cm, and a weight of 300 g.
The wooden frame, covered on the left and the right with black zinc plates (holding the bars in place and also folding over the left and right edges of the device to form the sides), has slots for 8 sliding bars (there are also 6-digit models). The upper slide represents the units, the next the tens, etc. Each bar has a series of regularly spaced holes. The wooden pieces that form the slots are stamped from right to left 1 to 9. Numbers are entered by moving the bars from left to right. Totals are visible on the back of the device.
If it is desired to add two numbers, for instance, 251 and 185, the pin is inserted into the hole opposite Figure 1 on the first slide, and said slide is pushed toward the right until the pin strikes the cap D’. Then the pin is inserted into the hole opposite the figure 5 on the second slide, and so on for all digits of the addends. If the hole is on the dark portion of the slide, then the said slide has to be moved leftward, instead of rightward. The result of operation is ascertained by turning the platform A upside down and noticing the figures appearing on the underside of the slides opposite to the apertures b (see the lower image) in the platform.
The result apertures of Fowler’s Adder
Biography of George Fowler
George Benedict Fowler was born on 26 July 1834, in Flushing, Long Island, New York. In the early 1860s, he was a resident of Chicago, Illinois. By 1864 he returned to New York City, opening a company to produce his adding device (Fowler Adding Machine Co., No. 37 Park Row, New York). In the late 1860s, Fowler used to work as a patent agent in Brooklyn. Besides the above-mentioned two patents for adders, he went on to patent a variety of other devices, including: a clothes and hat hook (US40923), a wood-splitter (US53289), a game-box for ten-pins (US107030), a wagon-jack (US113285), a crusher and press (US136498), an eggbeater and mixer (US256310), a picture cord and hook hanger (US357312), combined cane and cigar case (US368823), a hand grip tester (US344095), a clam roaster (US424875), etc.
George Benedict Fowler died on 12 May 1891 (aged 56) in Brooklyn, New York, and was buried at the local Green-Wood Cemetery.
Those who are clever, who have a Brain, never understand anything. Winnie the Pooh
The calculating rods of Herschell Filipowski
About 1860 the English mathematician, linguist, and editor Herschell Filipowski designed and published a description of his Calculating Machine for Multiplication and Division, similar to Napier’s Bones, but actually based on Slonimsky’s theorem. It seems only two contrivances survived to our time (see the photos below), one at the Science Museum, London, and another in a private collection.
The calculating rods of Filipowski include a set of fifty-six wooden cylindrical rods (each representing 1 of 28 states of carryovers), stored in holes in a wooden mahogany case with overall dimensions 128 mm x 130 mm x 75 mm. Up to eight rods can be arranged side by side in a slim wooden tray in order to build the desired multiplication table. Each rod shows ten columns with digits and letters (arranged as columns) printed on paper and bears a knob on its top. The knob is marked with a single letter.
For all multipliers [0, 9], regardless of the state of carryovers, there are 28 states of carryovers. To multiply neither mechanical carry nor mental addition is needed. During multiplication, both the multiplication result and a rod corresponding to the next digit position are determined.
The original description of the calculating rods by Herschell Filipowski
Although Slonimsky’s name isn’t mentioned at all in the explanatory text, from the example it is clear, that Filipowski used Slonimsky’s theorem. The only modification concerns the replacement of indices with letters.
A short description of the device, along with a calculating example and a table, showing the aimed result, can be found inside the lid of the box, containing his calculating rods (see the nearby photo). An interesting note is printed at the end of the description—H. Filipowski gives lessons in Mathematics and Astronomy; also in the German and Oriental Languages, at very moderate terms. London, 25, Wilson street, Finsbury-square.
Biography of Herschell Filipowski
The Russian Jew Zevi Hirsch Filipowski (Цви Гирш Филиповски) was born in 1816 in Verzhbolovo, Russian Empire (now Virbalis, Lithuania). Virbalis (Ger. Wirballen; Pol. Wierzbolow; Rus. Вержболово), is a town in S.W. Lithuania. Due to the position of the town on an important commercial route between Russia and Germany, its large Jewish community was financially prosperous.
Fortunately, as a boy, Filipowski chanced on a good teacher—a Polish schoolmaster who secretly aided him in acquiring the rudiments of modern education, and soon he demonstrated an extraordinary endowment for mathematics and languages. When only fifteen, Filipowski published “An Almanac for One Hundred Years” both in the Polish and Russian languages.
In 1839, Filipowski emigrated to London, England, and later on, was followed by his wife Esther Morgenstern (b. 1817), and his daughter Matilda (b. 1836). In England, the family had four more children—Denizen (1847-1912), Concezio (b. 1849), Abraham (b. 1850), and Concordia (1860-1911).
In London Filipowski was at first employed as a teacher of Hebrew and Oriental Languages in the Jews’ College (a rabbinical seminary, see the nearby image), Finsbury Square, at the same time preparing himself for his future career as a mathematician and author. Later he worked as a printer and published quite a few books and edited magazines in the field of mathematics, Hebrew literature, etc.
In 1849 he published a work on “Anti-Logarithms”, which established his name among mathematicians. In the 1850s Filipowski was employed as an actuary for the Colonial and Standard Life Offices at Edinburgh. In 1857 he translated Napier’s “Canon of Logarithms” from Latin into English, and in 1864-66 he edited Baily’s “Doctrine of Life Annuities and Assurance.”
About 1860 Filipowski returned to London, and during this time he created the above-mentioned device for multiplication.
Filipowski’s extensive knowledge of typography proved of great service in the publication of his works. The industrious laborer invented a font of Hebrew type, with points attached to each letter, from which a Hebrew and English Prayer-book was printed in 1862.
Filipowski’s linguistic powers may be judged from the assertion that he was conversant with Polish, Russian, Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, French, English, German, and Chinese. But believing that great advantages in the relations of mankind would be derived from a universal language, he urged its adoption in his various writings.
Herschell Filipowski died at Brixton, London, on 22 July 1872.
The patent drawing of the first Jacot des Combes’ adding machine
Yet another Parisian (living on rue du Petit-Carreau 23) watchmaker (after Ernest-Narcisse Lobbé in 1855) invented an early keyboard adder in the 1850s—Eugène Jacot des Combes (1825-1875) was a holder of two French patents for adding machines (machine à additionner) (Brevet №43781 from 1 February 1860, and Brevet №68027 from 11 July 1865). Jacot des Combes has also another patent from 1871 for apparatus for electrification of the air and ozone production.
The adding machine of Eugène Jacot des Combes is a column keyboard adder (while column adders can have two or more result digits, you can only add into the rightmost digit, and then generally only with the integers one through nine) with nine keys and a 3-positional result mechanism. It was one of the early keyboard adders, after the machines of White, Torchi, Schwilgué, Parmelee, the abovementioned Lobbé, Castle, Hill, and Nutz.
The construction of the device (see the nearby patent drawing) seems to be simple and reliable, but nothing survived to our time about Eugène Jacot des Combes and his machines.
On 17 August 1858, one Leonard N. Nutz, a machinist from Alton, Illinois, received a patent (US patent №21236) for a single column adding device, which was the fourth in the USA keyboard adder (after the machines of Dubois D. Parmelee, Orlando Lane Castle, and Thomas Hill), and eighth in the world (after the machines of James White, Luigi Torchi, Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué, and Ernest-Narcisse Lobbé). The patent of Nutz was assigned to Judge Irwin Blackman Randle (1811-1893, an Alton lawyer) and Elias Hibbard (1795-1873, a wealthy Alton businessman), who obviously financed and ordered the device to Nutz. Moreover, Judge Randle’s son—Irwin Blackman Randle Jr. (1834-1898), the Township Assessor, Deputy Sherif, and Town Councilman, signed as a witness of the patent.
Interestingly enough, Orlando Lane Castle, who received his first patent only several months before Nutz (24 November 1857), also lived in Alton (Mark Twain once referred to Alton as a “dismal little river town”). It’s hard to believe, that living in this little town (in the 1850s Alton’s population was between 4000 and 5000 people) Castle and Nutz didn’t know each other and didn’t share their ideas. Most probably, Nutz was involved in the manufacturing of Castle’s machines (Castle was a Professor at Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, so he definitely needed a good mechanic).
Besides the patent, nothing is known about the machine of Nutz, so probably it remained only on paper and the assignors (Randle and Hibbard) didn’t manage to set up its production. Even the original U.S. Patent Model (up to 1880, the Patent Office required inventors to submit a model with their patent application) seems to be lost or destroyed. So we have no choice, but to examine the calculator of Nutz, using the patent drawing (see the drawing below).
The calculator of Leonard Nutz (the patent drawing)
The calculator of Nutz is a single-column adding device with a simple, but obviously well-designed and reliable construction.
The innovative technical solution in the construction is the adjustable shaft fixed by a catch (marked with a D in the patent drawing), which actually was the claim of the patent. The shaft has one or more feather-keys thereon for the purpose of clutching and giving motion to the block of the indicator corresponding with the column one wishes to add.
If for example an addition of several multi-digital numbers must be performed, firstly all units must be entered, using the keyboard. Then the catch is lifted from the shaft D and the shaft is pushed in, so as to clutch the block of the indicator of tens. The indicator of tens is then in gear with the keys of the keyboard, and the addition of this column is proceeded with in like manner to that of the column of units. By thus continuing to change the connection between the shaft and the indicators from one corresponding to the column where the addition is completed to the next following, any number of columns may be added up and registered by the use of the same keyboard.
The indicators are endless chains passing over two square blocks and numbered from 0 to 9. At intervals of every ten links is a pin for the purpose of operating on a lever, which in turn acts upon another pin on the rear side of the next indicator and moves it forward one link for every ten links, that indicator the next preceding has been moved.
Biography of Leonard Nutz
Leonard Nice Nutz (named after his grandfather, Leonard Nutz Sr.) was born on 14 October 1810, probably in the house of his grandfather (pictured below) in Germantown (nowadays part of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). His parents were William Nutz (born 23 Nov. 1777) from Germantown, and Susannah Nice (b. 1781–d. 2 Sep. 1848) from Nicetown (today also part of the city of Philadelphia), who married on 7 Sep. 1803 in Germantown, and had two children: Leonard Nice and William Nice (b. 1811).
The residence (the two-storey house in the middle) of tanner Leonard Nutz built circa 1730 at 5329 West Penn Street, Germantown; (A photo of Frederick De Bourg Richards, April 1859; Courtesy of Library Company of Philadelphia Print Dept)
Notes: “A very old stone house, of two storys, owned and dwelt in by Nutz, a tanner, who had his tanyard along the street, southward. It is now a house resting some two feet or more below the street pavement but in former years (before the turnpike was laid there at a higher grade)… It had two steps upwards of entrance from the street. It was originally the Van de Waestyne House… On the Main Street of Germantown – on the north side of the street, between Shoemaker and Mill street”.
William Nutz and his younger brother John worked as tanners with their father— Leonard Nutz Sr., who was one of the wealthiest people in Germantown, and a nice portrait of his wife Margaretha (Keyser) Nutz (1748-1812) is kept in Philadelphia Museum of Art (see below). They had 7 children: Elizabeth (b. 1769), Sarah (b. 1771), Christianna (b. 1774), Leonard (b. 1775), William (b. 1777), and John (b. 1779).
Leonard Nice Nutz was married twice. In 1836 he married in Clermont, Ohio, to Rebecca Clutch (1812-1845). Their children were Susanna Nice (1837-1920), William (b. 1838), Francis Johnston (1840-1887), Leonard McDonald (b. 1842), and Rebecca (1843-1846).
On 27 November 1846, a year after the death of his first wife Rebecca, Leonard married a second time, Susan Catherine Cochran (4 Sep 1827-27 Aug 1901) from Maysville, Mason Co., KY. Their children were Theodore Marston (3 Apr 1850-12 Apr 1927), Charles (1853-1918), the twins Carrie Belle (1858-1928) and Harry (1858-1885), Mary (b. 1859), George Washington (1861-1910), and Rebecca (died in infancy).
A compass of Leonard Nutz (1853)
Leonard Nutz lived in St. Louis for some 10 years (c. 1847 until 1857) and is listed several times in the St. Louis City Directory; in 1848 he is listed as a machinist, residing at 158 Olive Street. He is next listed in 1851, giving machinist as his trade. In the 1852 Directory Nutz is again listed as a machinist, located at 10 Second Street. In the 1857 Directory, Leonard Nutz is listed as a mathematical and philosophical instrument maker.
A nice compass (19 inches in length and 8.25 inches in diameter), made by Leonard Nutz for the surveyor Benaiah Robinson in 1853, survived to our time (see the nearby image), and is kept now in the collection of Madison County Historical Society.
In late 1857 Leonard Nutz moved with his family to Alton, Illinois, where he died on 16 November 1870. His sons Theodore, Charles, and George also became splendid mechanics, made a success in business, and became prominent citizens of Alton in their line.
In London Filipowski was at first employed as a teacher of Hebrew and Oriental Languages in the Jews’ College (a rabbinical seminary, see the nearby image), Finsbury Square, at the same time preparing himself for his future career as a mathematician and author. Later he worked as a printer and published quite a few books and edited magazines in the field of mathematics, Hebrew literature, etc.
