Category: Timeline Stories

The first demonstration of computer music was made (and it caused quite a stir) during the inaugural Conference of Automatic Computing Machines in Sydney, Australia, held from 7 to 9 August 1951. The program was written by Geoff Hill, a young computer programmer with perfect pitch, and ran on the computer CSIR Mark 1 (later renamed CSIRAC—the CSIR Automatic Computer), the first stored-program computer in Australia.

Geoffrey William Hill (1928–1982), a student in mathematics and physics at the University of Sidney, entered the Sydney-based CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) Radiophysics Laboratory in 1949 as a part-time technical assistant to a research group with the goal to design and build an electronic computer (project started in 1947 by Trevor Pearcey, an English scientist, who migrated to Australia in 1945). The machine, referred to as CSIR Mk 1, was to be built using the vacuum tube or valve technology and the pulse techniques developed for radar systems during World War II. The CSIR Mk1 ran its first test programs in late 1949, and it was the fifth electronic stored-program computer ever developed. The machine was officially opened in 1951 and used to solve problems both for the Radiophysics Laboratory and outside organizations.

CSIRAC was a very primitive computer by modern standards. The machine was entirely serial in operation and contained 2000 thermionic valves or vacuum tubes (twin triodes), representing 4000 logic elements. It was very slow (up to 1000 instructions per second), did not have very much memory (about 2KB of RAM and 4KB of disk memory–four 1024 word stores with an average access time of 10 msec), and filled a room and consumed about 30 kW of power, and had no display like a modern computer. Input and output, initially via punched cards, were later changed to hole paper tape, which can be converted to text on another machine. The only familiar output device was a speaker (called the hooter), and it was used to track the progress of a program. Programmers would place a sound at the end of their program so they knew it had ended (this was known as a blurt), or they would program progress-indicator blurts into a program.

The memory of the CSIRAC was mercury acoustic delay lines. That means a pulse would be put into the memory tube, it would travel to the other end of the tube and be recycled back to the front. In this way, many bits and digital words could be stored in one tube of mercury. There were 32 memory tubes and each of these can hold 32 words (a total of 1024 words). A consequence of using mercury acoustic delay time memory was that each memory access took a different time (about 1 msec). This would prove problematic for any time-critical application, such as playing music in real-time.

The melodies played were mostly from popular songs, like: ‘Colonel Bogey’, ‘Bonnie Banks’, ‘Girl with Flaxen Hair’, and so on. The way CSIRAC created sounds was by sending raw pulses from the computer data bus to the speaker. If casually programmed, these pulses would arrive at the speaker at somewhat random times, resulting in the blurting type of sound used by programmers to indicate points in the program’s execution.

Hill would have quickly realized that if he could get the pulses to arrive at a regular time, then he would get a steady pitch. Then, perhaps he could program the notes of a musical scale. This was an exceedingly difficult task because each memory access took a different time, and the overall clock frequency was only 1000 cycles a second.

But Hill managed this, and his musical knowledge was invaluable, although on at least one occasion he telephoned his mother (she was a music teacher) late at night and asked her if some notes were in tune while holding the telephone receiver to the computer speaker. Her response on the first occasion was to scold her son for playing silly buggers with a comb and a piece of paper and annoying her late and night when his dinner was in the oven! She didn’t understand what was going on.

When CSIRAC moved to the University of Melbourne in 1956, it continued to play music. The university’s mathematics professor Tom Cherry wrote a program so that anyone could punch a “score” or “pianola” tape for the computer to play without the intricacies of knowing how to program the hooter.

Biography of Geoff Hill

Geoffrey (Geoff) William Hill was born on 16 February 1928 in Hawthorn, Melbourne, Australia. He came from a very musical family; his mother was a music teacher, his sister a performer and he had perfect pitch. In his younger day, he took part in stage plays.

In 1946 Hill began his study in mathematics and physics at the University of Sidney and worked at CSIR Division of Radiophysics as a student employee, then as a part-time technical assistant from 1949. He graduated in 1950 with BSc (Hons), then in 1954, he received an MSc in mathematics and computing for a thesis entitled Programming for High Speed Computers. In 1961, he was awarded a Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne for a dissertation on Advanced Programming of Digital Computers.

Hill’s professional career had been almost entirely with the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). In 1949, while yet a student, he joined CSIRO’s Division of Radiophysics as a part-time Technical Assistant, responsible for the logical design, defining the instruction set and to developing a programming scheme of CSIR Mk1, the first stored-program computer in Australia. In the early 1950s Hill was the main programmer of CSIR Mk1. In 1960 he devised a simple automatic language titled INTERPROGRAM. With INTERPROGRAM, programs could be written in an English-like language. In 1957, he transferred to the Division of Mathematics and Statistics where he worked for 21 years rising to the level of Senior Principal Research Scientist and Acting Chief of the Division. In 1976, he moved into the Division of Mineral Chemistry so he could devote more time to the pursuit of geostatistics.

In 1975, with the assistance of a French Government Scholarship, Hill studied at the Centre de Morphologie Mathematique at Fontainebleau. In 1980, he returned to the Centre again for a period of 6 months for additional studies. During his career, Geoff was a Visiting Scientist and Professor to organizations and universities in the United States, Canada, and South Africa. He contributed to the organization of, and presented papers at many international conferences and published about 40 papers.

Hill was an extremely talented scientist, he never stopped learning and was interested in a wide range of problems, including farm yields, rainfall, library systems, accounting procedures and financial data processing, soils, geomechanics, and forecasting. In addition to serving on editorial boards and reviewing manuscripts for several journals, he belonged to numerous organizations. Included in the list are International Association for Mathematical Geology, ACM, Biometrics Society, Australian Statistical Society, International Statistical Institute, Australian Computing Society, and International Mathematical Statisticians.

Geoff Hill was married to Eilene Hill, and they had three children: a daughter, Elizabeth, and two sons—Peter and Michael.

Geoff Hill died suddenly of a heart attack on 15 November 1982 while returning home from work in his car.

In the 1850s James R. C. Appleby, a linsey maker and hosier from Shaftesbury, Dorset, England, devised a simple stylus-operated calculating device (kind of a simple money abacus), a model of which managed to survive to our time (see the lower images).

The adding device of Appleby has the following dimensions 37 x 10.5 x 4 cm, and is labeled: “Accountant Machine by RC Appleby, Saint James, Shaftsbury, Dorset, 1856”. A stylus is present in a fitted compartment.

Biography of James Appleby

James Ramsey Cuthbert Appleby was born on 2 January 1807 in Saint James (part of Shaftesbury, or Shaston, a borough, market town, and civil parish in Dorset, England). He was the son of George Appleby (1767-1841), a hosier, and his wife Frances Appleby (1769-1842). James Appleby spent all his life in Shaftesbury, working as a linsey/worsted maker and hosier, and later as a parish clerk at St. James’ Church.

James Appleby never married and died in 1891 in Shaftesbury.

On 3 October 1853, Martial Roussel, a member of the Amiens Academy (Somme, department of France), applied for a patent for additionneuse (adding machine). Soon, on 24 November 1853, Roussel got a French patent (Brevet d’Invention No. 17528) for 15 years. The adding machine of Martial Roussel was one of the early keyboard adders, after the machines of James White, Luigi Torchi, and Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué.

In fact, in the initial patent of Roussel are described two keyboard adders (with different positions of keys), and the patent is completed in 1855, to describe an adder with a different input mechanism (a wheel).

The first and second adding machines of Martial Roussel (see the lower patent drawing of the second device, described in the patent), were simple one-column keyboard adders with a three-positional result mechanism.

In the device, described in the supplement of 1855 (see the lower patent drawing), the keyboard input mechanism was replaced with a big wheel with stick-out teeth.

Obviously, the adding machines of Martial Roussel remained only on paper and had never been implemented in practice.

Biography of Martial Roussel

Martial Roussel was born on 1 July 1803, in Amiens, an ancient town in Somme department, Picardie region, in northern France.

We don’t know anything about his childhood and education (he probably studied medicine), but obviously, he got a good education, because in February 1830 he was appointed an Archivist at Archives départementales de la Somme, located in Amiens, and several years later was promoted to the Director position. In November 1838 Roussel left the Archives, to accept the position of treasurer of Prisons of Somme. In August 1841 he was promoted to Director of Prisons of Somme, and succeeded in establishing new workshops for prisoners.

From 1843 until his death in 1874 Roussel worked as secretary-coordinator of la Maison Cozette in Amien. La Maison Cozette (see the lower picture from 1860), is a mansion in Amiens (still existing today), bequeathed to the city by his owner from Cozette family, to be used as a poorhouse.

Martial Roussel was an active titular member of the Amiens Academy (Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres, Arts, Agriculture et Commerce du Département de la Somme) since 1838 until his death in 1874. His interests were in the area of the contrivances of raising water (in 1837 he invented a machine for raising water), on the direction of aerostats (in 1843 he invented a system of propellers for aerostats), on atmospheric currents, on the improvements in watchmaking, on the vital principle, on the multiplicity of natural forces. He delivered many speeches and essays, for example, in April 1865, he presented a speech (Historical and technological information on the clock of the belfry of Amiens), which was published in the 1866 Memoires de L’Academie.

Martial Roussel was married to Flore Augustine Brocq.

Martial Roussel died on 20 Mai 1874, in Amiens, and was buried in Cimetière de la Madeleine.

In the early 1890s, the German merchant Friedrich Wilhelm Küttner (1841-1920) from Burgk bei Potschappel (near Dresden) decided to invest a part of his money in creating a calculating machine. The device itself, based on the pin-wheel mechanism, known in Europe as Odhner’s wheel, was designed and manufactured by Woldemar Heinitz in his precision engineering workshop in Dresden (Heinitz and Küttner families were known to each other).

Woldemar Reinhold Heinitz (1874-1946) was a brilliant Dresdner engineer and manufacturer, who was a holder of numerous patents, primarily in the area of calculating machines and cash registers, and devoted most of his life to the production of mechanical calculators like Simplex, Duplex, Monopol and Comptator. Strangely, he became famous not with his masterly calculating machines, but with his collection of insects, which is now in the Chemnitz Natural History Museum.

Wilhelm Küttner received in 1894 a patent for his calculating machine (DE84269, 23.11.1894: Rechenmaschine mit Zwangsläufiger Bewegung der Registrirräder und des Tourenzählers). Later Küttner received Swiss (CH9450, 07.12.1894), French (FR243015, 20.11.1894), and US patents (US patent 650066, 23.01.1895, see the upper patent drawing).

The machine of Küttner (dimensions: 12 x 30 x 15 cm; weight: 7,8 kg) was the first pin-wheel machine that possessed tens-carry in the revolution counter, thus for the first time ensuring the appearance of the correct value in the revolution counter not only in ordinary but also in shortcut multiplications and divisions. The machine was manufactured under the names Simplex and Duplex for some time (1894-1902) by the company of Wilhelm Küttner and Woldemar Heinitz, Rechenmaschinenfabrik Heinitz & Küttner in Dresden.

Later on, Küttner sold the manufacturing rights to other companies, and the device was manufactured until 1904 under the name Monopol by the company Dresdner Kontrollkassen und Rechnungsfabrik in Dresden (under the direction of Heinitz) and then until 1914 by Schubert & Salzer in Chemnitz. There are also models with printing mechanisms, as well as with electrical operations.

The early examples based on Küttner’s machine differ from the later Monopoly machines in the position of the individual movements: In the early machines, the revolution counter and the result mechanism are at the front, both of which can be folded forward; behind it is the setting mechanism, which uses wheels with radially movable rungs. Despite the technical improvements, these very solidly built machines were unable to prevail against their competitors like Brunsviga.

On 6 May 1844, a certain Jehu Hatfield of Glens Falls, New York, took out a US patent №3574 for a machine for computing interest, measuring lumber, and for other purposes. It is unknown how many devices were produced, but at least one managed to survive to our time (see the nearby photo).

The device of Hatfield is housed in a mahogany veneer over pine case, similar to the shelf clock cases made during the 1840s. There is a blue colored paper on the inside of the lower half of the door. The calculating mechanism is operated by a turned wooden knob on the left side of the case. When the knob is turned the hand on the dial is directed to various “Months” and “Days”. At the same time, the hand in the upper section of the case moves the vertical cylinder in the lower half of the case spins to reveal the “Principal Dollars” and “Principal Cents” visible through the opening in the blue paper-covered lower door panel.

The machine (see the lower patent drawing) consists of a vertical revolving cylinder (marked with A), having on its outer surface vertical parallel columns of figures, representing the interest on the several sums shown in a stationary column on a surrounding case. There is also a circular scale, or dial (D), placed in front of the case in a vertical position, to indicate the days of the month, with an index hand, or pointer (G), which is operated by the cylinder—the two being connected together by mitre wheels (B).

Biography of Jehu Hatfield

Jehu Hatfield was born on 16 June 1806, in a farm in Middle Paxton Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, as the 6^th child from the third marriage of John Hatfield (1 May 1745-4 Aug 1813) and his third wife Nancy Berryhill (1766-1850).

John Hatfield was a prosperous dairy farmer in Dauphin County. When in 1813 he died in the 69^th year of his life, he left a wife and thirteen surviving (of eighteen) children (he had seven children from his first marriage to Sarah Patton (1756-1788), three from his second marriage to Elizabeth Cochran (died 1793), and eight from third, a remarkable productiveness, even for the time), including Jehu. John Hatfield was a husbandman, soldier of Revolution, and a very intelegent man and quite of Scholar in his day. The Hatfields were Yorkshire men, who, via Leyden, came to America in the 1660s, settling in Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Jehu stayed in the farm with his family for some years, before relocating to New York State when he reached adulthood.

Jehu Hatfield married too young Harriet Hatfield and the couple had a daughter, but for some reason, they obtained a divorce by an act of Pennsylvania legislature on 6 April 1833. In the same year, Jehu married Phebe Ann Wood (1804-1897) in Rensselaerville, New York. The new couple settled in Mechanicville, Saratoga County, New York, where they produced three children: Mary E. (b. 1835), Charles Berryhill (1838-1916), and Ann Eliza (1842).

The name of Jehu Hatfield remained in US history with the curious episode of inventing the modern friction matches (the first successful friction match, called later Lucifer’s match, was invented in 1826 by John Walker, an English chemist, and druggist from Stockton-on-Tees, but these early matches had a number of problems). In August 1835, while Jehu was working in the spittoon and pottery-making business in Mechanicville, a friend handed him two friction matches (French fire-sticks offered for sale on the New York docks), which he has never seen before. Being engaged at that time in the manufacture of lucifer matches at Mechanicville, Jehu received them as a treasure, and immediately set his wits to work to unravel the secret of their production. Not being a chemist himself, he asked for help from local chemical heads in Mechanicville, Troy, and Albany, but to no avail, so he decided to experiment alone.

Examining the matches, he made up his mind from the smoke and light they emitted in the dark, that they contained phosphorus. He went experimenting, mixing phosphorus and gum arabic, trying to combine them on some hot coals. Unfortunately, the first batch took fire and burned up. Then he went to work a little more systematic, and succeeded well with adding a little chlorate of potash. Thus step by step (with the help of his friends Joel Farnam of Mechanicsville, NY, and Martin Day of Chesterfield, Mass.) Jehu managed to crack the chemical formula that ignited the devices and produced about 1400 match sticks, which he sold for 14 shillings. This was the first modern friction matches (widely known as locofocos) production in the USA.

Jehu Hatfield even received a patent in this area (US Patent №219 of 3 June 1837, for mode of dipping or charging locofoco matches), and applied for another patent in 1839, but it was rejected. Unfortunately, despite starting the production of friction matches in September 1835, Jehu didn’t manage to patent his invention. The first patent for the manufacture of friction matches in the USA (Letters Patent No. 68, dated October 24, 1836) was granted to Alonzo Dwight Phillips of Springfield, Mass. So Hatfield was forced to abandon his original venture to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

In the late 1840s, Jehu Hatfield served as a town clerk of Stillwater (a town nearby Mechanicville, New York). In 1862 he received another patent ((US Patent №34229 of 21 Jan 1862) for Machine for Making Paper Boxes.

Jehu Hatfield died on 23 April 1871, in Troy, New York.

After the first two machines, representing the class of direct-multiplying machines of Edmund Barbour and Ramon Verea, which remained relatively unknown, appeared a third one, which had a much better destiny—machine à multiplier (multiplying machine) of León Bollée of Le Mans, France, which won a gold medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition.

Most early calculating machines carried out multiplication as a form of repeated addition. To multiply, say, by sixteen, one set the carriage at its rightmost position, turned the operating crank six times, shifted the carriage one position to the left, and turned the crank once (eight operations). In direct-multiplying calculating machines, the operator had only to perform n operations when the multiplier was an n-digit number (i.e. the above-mentioned multiplication will need only two movements).

Léon Bollée (1870-1913) was a famous French inventor, auto manufacturer, and racing enthusiast. Besides (and before) his passion for automobiles, quite young Léon Bollée was obsessed with another passion—calculating machines. Starting from 1887, he invented several calculating devices, we know at least five of them: 1. Tableaux multiplicateurs-diviseurs (Tables for multiplication-division); 2. Petit appareil multiplicateur (Small Multiplicator); 3. Appareils servant à effectuer mécaniquement les calculs (Arithmographe); 4. Small Adding Machine; 5. Machine à multiplier or Grande machine a calculer (Multiplying Machine).

Tableau multiplicateur-diviseur (Tables for multiplication-division) (see the image below) is a simple table-based instrument for manual multiplication, division, and square root.

Petit appareil multiplicateur (Small Multiplicator) is a simple calculating device (see the image below), based on a set of cylindrical Napier’s bones, similar to Nouvelle machine d’arithmétique of René Grillet de Roven.

The Arithmographe of Bollée is a mechanical calculating tool for multiplication and division, which used rulers of Genaille-Lucas, arranged in sheets (see the photo below). Dimensions: 31 x 28,5 x 2,6 cm; Weight: 3.5 kg. This instrument combines a slide adder mechanically connected with a series of overlapping multiplication rods. Partial results (of multiplication) are not given in the form of digits, like on Napier’s bones, but by the positions of adding wings (coulisses d’addition).

The latest (at the time of creation) calculating device of Bollée—the Compteur (Small Adding Machine), was an interesting adding device (see the image below), based on phone dials, which remained relatively unknown. The input dials (marked C and D in the lower drawing) can be rotated separately or simultaneously until reaching the stoppers (F and E). The result of the calculation can be read in the table G placed on the left, using the moving tip H, resting on lever 1.

The biggest and most complex of Bollée’s calculating devices—the Multiplier,  was actually the first successful direct-multiplying calculator and it became quite popular after it won a gold medal at the 1889 Paris Exposition. Two of the devices (Multiplying Machine and Arithmographe) were patented in France (1889, No FR201033), Belgium, Germany (DE88936 and DE82963), Austria-Hungary, Great Britain (GB16677), and the USA (patent No 556720 from 1896) (see the figure below).

The Multiplier of Bollée (see its presentation in the Manufacturer and Builder magazine of July 1890) was a large (overall size: 45.5 cm x 104 cm x 38 cm) manually operated non-printing direct multiplication calculating machine, which has an iron base with a brass and steel mechanism and an open framework.

The main advantage of all direct-multiplying machines over the other calculating machines of this time is the speed of calculations. In 1892, during a demonstration, Bollée calculated automatically the square root of an 18-digit number in about 30 seconds, a remarkable speed for this time. Similar calculations with another machine would require at least five minutes.

The idea, used in the multiplying calculating machine of Bollée is to use special bars with attached pins of different lengths, to be created something like a mechanical representation of Napier’s bones. The different possible products are presented by means of two plates: the first is for units (see the lower sketch), second is for tens. The height of the pins is proportional to the digit, which is in this particular position of the product.

A metal box carrying 12 setting levers moves along a bar near the front of the machine. In front of it are a multiplier knob and brass disc with 20 teeth. The spaces between the teeth are labeled from 0 to 9 and from 0 to 9 again around the edge. Rotating the multiplier knob moves the metal box, placing it in one of the spaces between the teeth of the disc sets the digit of the multiplier.

The bar with pins is shifted in such a manner, that during the transfer of the number from the setting mechanism to the calculating mechanism the pins will come into contact with gear-strips and will move them to a different distance, according to the height of the particular pin. So the wheels of the counter, which will be engaged to these gear-strips will be rotated to different angles and thus the right digit will be transferred. So all the multiplication will be done with one movement of the calculating mechanism, not by consecutive addition or subtraction, as in other used for multiplication and division machines.

On the right side is a lever that may be set at either + or -. Toward the front is a set of 21 cylindrical dials, visible through windows. Each dial shows two digits at any one time. The top row of digits is labeled MULTN and used to show the multiplier in multiplication. The lower row of digits is labeled QUOTT and shows the quotient in the division. Above this row of cylinders is a row of 21 dials which shows the result in multiplication and is set with thumbscrews with the divisor in division.

Biography of Léon Bollée

Léon-Auguste-Antoine Bollée was born on 2 April 1870, in Le Mans, France, in the family of Amédée-Ernest Bollée (1844-1917), who was the most important pioneer of steam road vehicles in France. Léon had an elder brother, Amédée-Ernest-Marie (1867–1926), and a younger brother, Camille (1873-1940).

Bollée family were well known in France as bell founders (working in this trade since 1715). A native of Lorraine, the grandfather of León Bollée—Ernest-Sylvain Bollee (1814-1891) has long toured France to melt bells and chimes before settling in Le Mans in 1842. Ernest-Sylvain became seriously ill in the 1860s and was forced to delegate the running of his businesses to his three sons.

The eldest son and father of León Bollée—Amédée-Ernest Bollée (see the nearby photo) was given charge of the bell foundry, while Ernest-Jules (1846–1922) supervised the hydraulic ram business and the youngest son, Auguste-Sylvain Bollée (1847–1906) assumed control of the Éolienne Bollée wind-turbine factory.

However, in the early 1870s, Amédée-Ernest decided to switch to a recently established trade and became the pioneer of the automobile industry in France. Amédée Bollée produced several steam cars since 1873, including the pioneering L’Obeissante (the Obedient), which made the first road trip between Le Mans and Paris (some 500 km) in 18 hours, and the Mancelle from 1878, which is regarded as the first automobile to be put into series production. It is not a surprise, that later not only León, but also his elder brother Amédée-Ernest-Marie became automobile manufacturers, while the youngest brother, Camille, became an amateur inventor, auto-racer, and photographer.

León Bollée was an energetic and restless man, and he proved his genius in engineering in the first blush of his youth. In 1884, only 14 years old, he constructed a pedal vehicle (velocipede nautique). In 1887 the young Léon began work on several calculating machines. Especially the biggest one—the Direct Multiplier, which won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition of 1889, was a remarkable and very advanced calculating device, a real masterpiece of engineering. The American most famous inventor Thomas Alva Edison proposed to hire Bollée in the United States, but he declined the offer.

León Bollée was the first in France to build small gasoline-powered vehicles, beginning to do so in 1895. In 1896, he introduced a vehicle with three wheels, the so-called Voiturette (see the image below). At the time, these diminutive tandem two-seaters were the fastest things on the road, winning a variety of French road races at speeds of up to 45 km/h. In 1897 the Voiturette reached a top speed of almost 100 km/h. The single-cylinder 3 HP 650cc engine was designed by his brother Amédée. The Voiturette was the first automobile equipped with rubber tires. The cars sold well and several hundred were made for Léon Bollée by Hurtu & Diligeon. Encouraged by this initial success, he founded his business at Le MansL—éon Bollée Automobiles.

The next vehicle of Bollée (a four-wheel car) appeared in 1899. In 1903 Bollée produced his first big car. Renowned for its quality, the brand has instant success. Bollée built two 4-cylinder models, a 28-hp 4.6-liter and one 45-hp 8-liter engine, followed in 1910 by a 10-liter model. By 1911 his production facility manufactured 600 vehicles per year, quite a big number for the time.

León Bollée was also interested in aviation and aeronautics, taking a lively interest in the dirigible balloon inventions of several French inventors. In 1908 he invited the Wright brothers, the inventors of the world’s first successful airplane, to Le Mans on the occasion of their visit to France. Thanks to him, Wilbur Wright succeeded in finding common ground to steal his Flyer III A, the racetrack of Hunaudières near the current racing circuit of Le Mans, then at the military camp of Auvours between June 1908 and January 1909.

Léon Bollée was a holder of France’s Legion d’Honneur.

Léon Bollée was married to Carlotta Bollée (née Messinisi) (born 1880 in Vastizza, a rural area near Patras on the Gulf of Corinth, Greece), and they had a daughter—Élisabeth Bollée (born 9 August 1908). Élisabeth was a poet, she married Count Jean Maurice Gilbert de Vautibault in 1927, and later divorced de Vautibault to marry the American painter Julien Binford. She died on 11 July 1984.

In August 1911 Léon Bollée was injured in a flying accident and never fully recovered. As he also had a pre-existing heart problem and was overweight, he died of a heart attack in Paris on 16 December 1913, aged only 43, and was buried in Holy Cross cemetery on the heights of Le Mans. Today there is an avenue Léon-Bollée in Paris, and an avenue, monument, and stadium in Le Mans, named in his honor.

On 25 Sep 1883 Carl (Karl) Otto Büttner (1859-), a young mechanical engineer from Dresden, Germany, patented (together with his partner Carl Gustav Heyde) his first calculating machine (German patent №DE26640). Carl Gustav Th. Heyde (born on 25 Sep 1846 in Dresden, died 13 Nov 1930 in Dresden), was an optician, mechanic, shop owner, and founder (in 1872) and director of the company Gustav Heyde of Dresden.

The dimensions of the machine (without the box), shown in the image below, are: 37 x 10 x 21 cm, weight is 5,4 kg. Only four examples of this machine are known (and the prototype, kept in Arithmeum Museum, Bonn, Germany).

The appearance of the machine is very similar to the machine of Colmar, but its calculating mechanism is based not on the stepped-drum mechanism of Leibniz, but on a relatively new type of mechanism—the so-called Schaltklinke (this mechanism was described first time by Leupold, and later on used by Anton Braun and Kurt Dietzschold). This type of mechanism will be referred to later on as Hamann mechanism, because it will be used extensively in the machines of the famous German constructor Christel Hamann. This mechanism is called also switching latch, intermittent contact, adjustable pawl, and selectable ratchet. What is the basic principle of the mechanism?

The switching latch mechanism consists of a cylindrical cam surface that is adjustable, with a variable portion of the surface at a reduced radius. A pawl acts as a cam follower, engaging and turning an annular gear when it falls into the portion of the cylindrical cam with the smaller radius.

The machine is driven by a crank with a connecting rod. The numbers are entered in the setting mechanism using sliding knobs that move toothed segments below. The position of the slide determines the action of the pawl and the subsequent movement of a cog-wheel. Using further intermediate cogwheels, the entered number is transferred into the result mechanism. A type of con-rod gadget enables an impulse-free operation. Changing from addition to subtraction or from multiplication to division is performed with a lever. This is accompanied by a shift in the position of the result mechanism.

On 7 Nov 1888 Büttner received a second patent (together with his business partner Wilhelm Brückner), this time for a completely different calculating machine, based on the classical pin-wheel mechanism (patent №DE47243). The machine (basic dimensions: 58,8 x 10,5 x 12,7 cm, weight: 8.2 kg) was manufactured and sold by Brückner in three kinds: with 6-digit setting mechanism sold for 325 M, with 8-digit setting mechanism sold for 425 M, and with 10-digit setting mechanism sold for 625 M. However, despite being very well-made, the machine was too big, which combined with its far too complicated construction, probably accounts for their business failure.

In 1889 Büttner placed at a disposal of the Royal Saxon Statistical Bureau in Dresden a copy of his machine for everyday use. The machine proved to be very reliable and convenient for use. It was cheaper and simpler than other machines. In the following years, Büttner tried to produce his machine in larger quantities in Dresden, but without commercial success.

The second machine of Büttner was produced in three variants—with 12, 16, and 20 digital positions in the result mechanism and accordingly 7, 9, and 11 digital positions in counter of revolutions. The carriage is sloped forward for easier reading. The handle can be rotated in both directions. Zeroing of the two calculating mechanisms can be done by means of special keys. Entering the numbers can be done by rotating of the input gear-wheels, and digits can be seen in windows, arranged in a row, which is very convenient.

In 1849, William M. Haines, a clerk from Rochester, New York, patented a simple mechanical calculator (US patent No. 6403). The patent model of the device (up to 1880, the US Patent Office required inventors to submit a model with their patent application) is still preserved in the National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. (see the image below). This is the only surviving device and it obviously never became popular.

The mechanical calculator of William Haines is a wood and brass adding and subtracting device with overall measurements: 3 cm x 15.3 cm x 14.2 cm. It has a wooden base, a circular metal mechanism, and a single-digit mechanical carry, implemented by means of an axle.

At the center of the machine is a brass disc, having a hundred circular holes around the outside. Around it is a slightly elevated stationary circle or ring, with larger digits from 1 to 9 engraved around it, representing 10, 20, etc., through 90. Between each of these numbers, smaller digits from 1 up to 9 are engraved. There is a stop at 0.

Biography of William Haines

William M. Haines was born on 6 Sep 1811, in New York, to James Haines (1777-1865), and Phebe (Tucker) Haines (1783-1837). James and Phebe married in 1799 and had eight children, but only six of them survived to adulthood—four boys: Nathan Reynolds (1801–1866), B. David (1805-1883), Isaac T. (1810-1886), and William М. (1811-1870), and two girls: Sarah Ann (1816–1873), and Phebe Ann (1823–1855).

James Haines was a farmer in Cortlandt, Westchester County, N. Y., but preached the gospel to some extent after moving to Onondaga Co. in the middle 1810s. In 1821 he removed with his family to Rapids, N. Y., then to Rochester, Monroe Co., N. Y., where he started a business as a cooper.

We only know about William’s occupation that in the 1840s he was employed as a clerk in a variety store in Rochester. In the 1850s he moved to Leonidas, St. Joseph Co., Michigan, where one of his elder brothers—Dr. B. David Haines (William’s brothers David (see the nearby image) and Isaac were witnesses of his patent for a calculator), bought a farm several years earlier.

William Haines married Mary Haines (1834–1891), but they had no children.

William Haines died on 22 Nov 1870 (aged 59), in Leonidas, St. Joseph County, Michigan.

In 1875, the young William Seward Burroughs, son of a mechanic from Rochester, New York, according to the father’s desire to choose a gentleman’s vocation, entered the Cayuga County National Bank of Auburn as a clerk. There he spent long and tedious hours of adding numbers. He was already interested in solving the problem of creating an adding machine, after attending a mathematical lecture in 1872, but now it become an obsession. In the bank, there had been a number of earlier prototypes of calculating aids, but in inexperienced users’ hands, those that existed would sometimes give incorrect, and at times outrageous, answers.

The clerk work was not in accordance with the young man’s wishes, for he had a natural love and talent for mechanics and the boredom and monotony of clerical life weighed heavily upon him. Moreover, five years in the bank caused his health came to break and he was forced to resign.

At the beginning of 1880, Burroughs was advised by a doctor to move to live in a warmer climate area and to get a more active job, so he moved to St. Louis, where he obtained a job in a machine shop (according to some sources, his father Edmund Burroughs had moved his machine shop in St. Louis in the late 1870s, so William started his new career in his facility). These new surroundings, which appealed to him more (there he met many inventors, including Frank Baldwin), hastened the development of the idea he had already in his mind and the tools of his new craft gave him the opportunity to put into tangible form the first conception of the adding machine. Accuracy was the foundation of his work. No ordinary materials were good enough for his creation. His drawings were made on metal plates that could not stretch or shrink by the smallest fraction of an inch. He worked with hardened tools, sharpened to the finest points, and when he struck a center or drew a line, it was done under a microscope.

Burroughs soon gave up his regular employment and looked around for a small, well-equipped workshop where he could rent bench space and obtain an assistant to carry on his work. He finally located the shop of Joseph Boyer (see the nearby photo), a St. Louis manufacturer of Canadian origin, where he set up his tools and started out to make the adding machine commercially practical. Burroughs started his work with a meager capital of $300, and his funds soon disappeared. Joseph Boyer soon became the greatest factor in making the calculating machine of Burroughs a possibility, supporting and encouraging him.

Seldom has an inventor with a great idea been compelled to struggle under such conditions as faced the young inventor during the time he was developing his ideas for the adding machine. He set out to raise money by the sale of stock in the projected enterprise. With this money, he would then begin his experiments again, but about the time he was well underway, the bottom would drop out of the treasury. However, at the Boyer shop, activities continued unabated in spite of these obstacles. A small organization was built up, which made in brass the adding machine parts that the inventor desired. Finally, in the latter part of 1884, the first model of the machine was displayed and was the basis for the Burroughs patents, the first of which were applied in 1885 and granted in 1888 (see the lower drawing). The first machine was a nine-digit adding device with a printing mechanism, designed to record only the final result of a calculation. On the same date, but of later application, another patent (with No 388118), was issued to Burroughs, which claimed to combine the recording of the numerical items and the recording of the totals in one machine.

There now came a long period of new discouragements. The first machines proved unsatisfactory, principally because the human equation had not been taken into account. One person would operate with a heavier touch than another, consequently, the results obtained on the machine varied. The stockholders complained and the general opinion was formed that the new machine was a failure. Furious, Burroughs walked into the stockroom one day and tossed his machines out of the window, one by one.

But the setback was only a whip to Burrough’s determination. He began work again notwithstanding the fact that he was upon the verge of a physical breakdown. In fact, he did all of his earlier work under the handicap of gradually declining health. At his bench, he toiled for hours, without food or sleep, and on the morning of the third day from the beginning, he had eliminated the one great defect by an automatic controller, or dashpot. With this addition, the machine became practical, in that it could be operated by even a novice.

Then came the problem of manufacturing and selling the machines. On 20 January 1888, there was organized at St. Louis the American Arithmometer Company, which was incorporated with a capital stock of $100000. The original officers were: Thomas Metcalfe, president; William S. Burroughs, vice president; Richard M. Scruggs, treasurer; and A. H. B. Oliver, secretary. A contract was entered into with the Boyer Machine Company for the manufacture of the device, the selling operations were established and from time to time different models were put out, the beginning of the long line of models now manufactured.

By 1887, Burroughs had manufactured 50 machines. The straight adding and listing machine Burroughs had invented was the company’s only product; its purchase price was $475. In 1890 first machines were demonstrated in banks in New York and St. Lewis and some orders were accepted. The first fully functional machine of Burroughs is based on the patent, granted on 5 May 1892, and it was during this year, that the first large-scale production was undertaken. In 1895, sales climbed to 284 machines, and a dividend was paid to stockholders. That year Burroughs Adding and Registering Company was established in Nottingham, England, marking the company’s first entry into the international marketplace and the first ever international company for calculating machines.

Between 1895 and 1900, business really took off. Sales jumped to 972 machines and the machine won a gold medal at the Paris Exposition. Sadly, Burroughs, who had suffered a lifetime of chronic health problems, died in Citronelle, Alabama, on 14 September 1898. William Joseph E. Boyer, who had supported Burroughs’ efforts for many years, became president of the American Arithmometer Company in 1902. In 1904 the company moved to Detroit where it built a huge plant. That year the company’s name was changed to the Burroughs Adding Machine Company. Next year total sales were 7804 machines and employment rises to 1200. In 1906, Burroughs claimed that as of October 5 of that year, 40000 of its machines were in use in over 30000 concerns and that “ninety per cent of all adding machines sold are Burroughs.” In 1908 Burroughs offered 58 models, “One built for every line of business.” In 1910 Burroughs machines were already used by over 100000 users.

The Burroughs Adding Machine Company had quite aggressive management and market behavior (later on the company will be sued for “Conspiracy, Attempt to Monopolize and Monopoly”). When a potential competitor with a good machine appeared on the market, Burroughs simply makes a proposal for acquisition, which “cannot be refused”. This line of acquisitions began in 1903 when Joseph Boyer secretly enters into an agreement to acquire the Addograph Manufacturing Company, whose director was Hubert Hopkins and was financed by Dalton. The name Hopkins later becomes famous for the Moon–Hopkins machine. In 1908 Burroughs acquired the Universal Adding Machine Company of Missouri, which manufactured the first key-driven electric calculator with 2-color printing tape. In 1909 Burroughs acquired the Pike Adding Machine Company of New Jersey. In 1921 Burroughs purchased the Moon-Hopkins Billing Machine Company of Missouri.

For the next fifty years, Burroughs grew into the largest adding machine company in the world. It introduced new products including variations of the basic adding machine, typewriters, check protectors, and picketers.

In 1953 the Burroughs Adding Machine Company was renamed the Burroughs Corporation, a name more reflective of their broad scope of products, which began to include electronic computers. In 1986, Burroughs Corporation merged with Sperry Corporation to form Unisys Corporation.

During the first 3 decades of manufacturing Burroughs machines were manufactured in three designs:
Class 1 – The original design machine with one calculating mechanism, produced since 1892.
Class 2 – machines with two calculating mechanisms, and a special key for transferring a number from one mechanism to the other, produced since 1910.
Class 6 – machines with one calculating mechanism and direct subtraction (not by complementation).
These 3 classes are based on the original design of Burroughs and are known as blinding type, because the operator cannot see the printing results from the front of the machine.
Other classes of machines carry the Burroughs name but are not based on the original design of Burroughs.
Class 3 – the earlier Pike machine.
Class 4 – visible typing machine with a special multiplication device for shifting the numbers.
Class 5 – non-printing Burroughs Calculator (very similar to the Comptometer of Felt), produced since 1911.
Class 7 – calculating typewriter, manufactured previously by Moon-Hopkins, produced since 1921.

Later were presented other series of machines:
“P” series – a 20-pound “portable” adding machine, introduced in 1925.
“J” series – a range of ten-key adding and listing machines, introduced in 1954.

The external appearance of the classic Burroughs adding machine changed very little from 1892 into the 1920s (see the lower photo). The distinguishing features are the high-sloping keyboard, the beveled glass front, and the printing mechanism out-of-sight at the rear of the machine, which can be put in motion by means of a crank on the right side. There is also a glass front, and the display register is actually inside the casing. Many machines had glass sides as well, to display the internal “rocking segment” mechanism and the ornate cast-iron framework.

This particular machine of Class 1 performs addition only, with no provision for subtraction either directly or by addition of complements. There are two large keys on the left-hand side for totals and sub-totals, and three smaller keys for non-add, repeat, and error (or keyboard clear). The red buttons at the top of the machine act as zero keys to clear the individual keyboard columns.

Class 3 machines, based on the Pike machine (see the nearby photo), are equipped with the following auxiliary keys:
• Total key – all sums are indicated with a star, and at the same time, the calculating mechanism is set to zero.
• Subtotal key: all subtotals are indicated by an S.
• Non add key: all amounts not added, are specially marked.
• Correction key: when it is pressed, all the keys that have been pressed down return to their normal position.
• Repeat key: this key is useful for repeating actions (add and subtract) for multiplication and division.

Although the case shows a remarkable similarity to the Felt & Tarrant’s Comptometer, the Burroughs keyboard differs in a number of areas. The ten-shillings column has a full row of “1” keys, while the 10 and 11 pence keys are shifted sideways into the farthings column. There is no key release button, as the machine does not have a misoperation locking mechanism. There are no subtraction cutoff levers, so it is necessary for the operator to left-fill a complement entry with 9s. A small unlabeled key in the top left corner enters a 9 into the leftmost column. Felt & Tarrant however sued Burroughs for patent infringement based on the similarity of the cases, and Burroughs modified the appearance of its calculator.

An eight-column Burroughs Portable from the 1930s (see the lower photo), with direct subtraction and an internal electric motor drive. A small cover plate on the right-hand side can be opened to install a manual operating lever when required. The function keys in the rightmost column are Sub-Total, Total, Non-Add, Repeat, and Error (or keyboard clear), with the Add and Subtract bars at the far right.

Biography of William Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs was born in Rochester, New York, on 28 January 1857, to Edmund Burroughs (1826-1892), a mechanic, and Ellen Julia (Whipple) Burroughs (1833-1922), a homemaker. Edmund was such a fervent admirer of William Henry Seward (1801-1872), the famous abolitionist and governor of New York, that he named his son after him. William had an elder brother, Charles E. (born 1852), and sister (Anna, born 1855, who became a music teacher), and a younger brother (James, born 1861, who became a printer, then ventured into the emerging automobile business).

Edmund Burroughs was born in New York in 1826. He was the son of James C. Burroughs (7 Oct 1801–31 Oct 1865), who in the early 1840s moved west and bought a farm near Lowell, Michigan, made it prosperous, and later organized a national bank in Lowell. Edmund was a good mechanic and model-maker for castings and new inventions and had a thorough knowledge of mechanics and some inventive talent (he even filed patents for a railroad jack and a paper guillotine).

The family lived in Rochester, New York, where Edmund owned rather a successful machine shop, until late 1860, when they decided to move to live near Edmund’s parents in Lowell, Michigan. The family remained there until October of 1871 when they moved to Auburn, New York.

The years in Lowell would have a great influence on William. His elder brother Charles recalled that “Willie” spent a great deal of his time tinkering in his father’s machine workshop, located in a woodshed. He was a stubborn boy, showing an early talent for tool use, and just like his father, he was always building something, giving also evidence of persistence and resistance against the opposition. However, one thing Willie did not have was a talent for physical activities. His brother described him as hopelessly outdistanced in any boyhood activities requiring strength or endurance.

In the autumn of 1871, William entered Auburn High School. In early 1872 he went to the old Genesee str. No. 2 School in Auburn to listen to a lecture on Mathematical Short Cuts. During this talk he was fired with the idea that he can revolutionize clerical office practice throughout the world, creating an adding machine. Going to the lecture he merely expected some interesting tips that might help him with his arithmetic, but the train of thought created in the boy’s mind by the speaker, led him through sickness, financial wreck, and discouragement to the end of the rainbow to find success. After a half day of experimenting, William exclaimed: When I get to be a man I will make an adding machine that will amount to something in the world.

In 1873 William left the high school and went to work in the Auburn post office and also as a planer in a lumber yard. From there he went to the Cayuga County National Bank, where he became a discount clerk, but several years later he broke down from overwork. After a long and serious illness (he was already diagnosed with tuberculosis), William went into manufacturing on a small scale and lost all he had. Undaunted, he removed to Saint Louis, Missouri, in 1880, advised by his doctors to find a warmer climate and a more active occupation.

William moved to Saint Louis together with his father Edmund and his wife Ida (they married the previous year). In St. Louis Edmund and William Burroughs established a workshop. In Gould’s Directory of St. Louis for 1881, there was a listing for “E. Burroughs and Son, model maker; steam gauge testing apparatus, models in wood and metal, forty years experience.” Later William worked for the Future Great Manufacturing Company, and still later for Hall & Brown Co, in the manufacture of wood-working machinery. His experience with his father and these two companies, covering in all a period of some three years, constituted his entire training in practical mechanics. He had, however, a genius for theoretical mechanics, and his experience in his father’s shop brought him into contact with many inventors.

At that time the desire to build an adding machine that he had expressed earlier would now become an obsession. Although the climate in St. Louis was good for his tuberculosis, it was bad for precise drawing. He found that the high humidity caused shrinkage and expansion in his drawings, and solved this problem by scratching his concepts onto metal plates. By late 1884, William would have a working model of his adding machine and filed an application for a patent in 1885. Along the way, he would meet several businessmen, like Thomas Metcalfe, Richard Mitchell Scruggs, and especially Joseph Boyer, who would become key to the commercial success of his invention.

On 30 July 1879, William Burroughs married in Groton, New York, to Ida E. Selover (born in 1859 in the village of Moravia, near Auburn, to Perry Hazard Selover (1825-1887) and Mary Ann Allen (1827-1888). The family will have four children: Jennie (born 1880), Mortimer Perry (1885–1965), Horace Seward (1886-1915), and Helen (born 1892). Mortimer (Mote) Perry became a businessman (he ran for some time an antique shop in Palm Beach), and his second son (see the upper family photo) was named in honor of his inventor grandfather. William Seward Burroughs II (1914-1997) went on to become a notable figure in American letters in the twentieth century as an avant-garde novelist. The second son of William Burroughs, Horace Seward, became addicted to drugs (morphine), and finished his life tragically only 29 years old, from a self-inflicted wound (he cut his vein, crazed by the inability to obtain morphine).

William Burroughs was the classic absentminded inventor—his wife had to remind him to change his clothes and to eat, and used to say she had five children: two boys, two girls, and a husband. He was remote and cold to his children and didn’t allow them to bother him when he was working. He drank alcohol “to keep his energy up”, and once became so furious with manufacturing problems with his machines, that he threw open the window and tossed out all machines to smash to pieces on the ground.

In the early 1890s Burroughs’ business really took off, but his (and his wife’s) health continued to worsen. In early 1896 he resigned from the company and moved with Ida to hot-springs spa of Citronelle, Alabama, hoping that the change in climate would help him to get over his tuberculosis. However, Ida died there on 7 May 1896, and less than a month later Burroughs remarried his children’s nurse Nina F. Keltner (b. 1865). But he didn’t long survive his wife, and died in Citronelle, on 14 September 1898, only 41 years old, and was interred in Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, Missouri. His widow, Nina, was appointed guardian of the children and executor of his quite big estate.

In March 1887, Albert C. Ludlum (1867-1928), a young clerk in the Federal National Shoe & Leather Bank of the City of New York, applied for a patent for Adding and Writing Machine. The patent (No US384373), was granted in June 1888, then in 1891 the patent was reissued (pat. No USRE11147). The machine of Ludlum was mentioned in the patent of William Hopkins (pat. No US517383 from 1892) as the first machine with a carriage, or traveling member, which moves automatically from order to order as the numbered keys are operated.

The machine of Albert Ludlum was essentially a typewriter with an adding mechanism attached. Let’s examine the device, using the patent drawings (see both sheets with drawings below).

A series of numeral wheels and their devices for the machine and the transfer of the tens, designed to register the totals, are shown mounted in a shiftable frame connected with the bar marked F, with the typewriter carriage, and is claimed to move therewith.

Each numeral wheel is provided with a gear marked G, which, as the carriage moves after writing or printing each figure of the item, is supposed to slide into mesh one at a time with an adding gear marked H, the engagement taking place from the right to left. Or beginning with the right or units numeral wheel a higher order numeral wheel gear is supposed to shift through the movement of the carriage into engagement with the adding gear H, each time a key is depressed.

The adding gear H, is supposed to receive varying degrees of rotation from the keys according to their numerical marking and to rotate the numeral wheel with which it happens to be engaged, a corresponding number of its ten marked points of registration.

Between the adding gear H, and the keys which act to drive it, is a ratchet and gear device consisting of the ratchet pawl pivoted to the adding gear H, the ratchet I⁶ and its pinion gear, the segment gear I³ fast to the rock shaft I, the nine arms I¹ fast to the rock shaft and the pins I², which are arranged in the key levers to contact with and depress the arms I¹ of the rock shaft varying distances, according to the value of the key depressed. That is, supposing that the full throw of the key-lever was required to actuate the rock shaft with its gear and ratchet connection to give nine-tenths of a revolution to the numeral wheel in adding the digit nine, the pin I² in the (9) key-lever would, in that case, be in contact with its arm I¹, of the rock shaft, but the pins I², of each of the other key levers, would be arranged to allow lost motion before the pin should engage its arm I¹ of the rock shaft, in accordance with the difference of their adding value.

According to the specification, Ludlum evidently had the idea that he could stop the adding gear H, while under the high rate of speed it would receive from a quick depression of a key, by jabbing the detent J between the fine spacing of the gear teeth shown in his drawing. The principle is working, but it is not implemented properly by the inventor.

The detent lever J, as shown in the drawings, is operated by the hinged plate D, through the action of the key levers, as any one of them is depressed.

Under depression of a key, the hinged plate D, being carried down with it, engages the arm J³ of the detent and throws the tooth at its upper end into the teeth of the gear H.

The timing of the entry of the tooth of the detent is supposed to be gauged to enter the right tooth, but as the action of these parts is fast, slow, or medium at the will of the operator, considerable time must be allowed for variation in the entry of the detent tooth, which requires space, as certain parts will fly ahead under the sudden impact they may receive from a quick stroke, where they would not under a slow stroke, but no allowance was provided for such contingency.

The means provided for the carry of the tens consist of the gears G⁹, meshing with the numeral wheel gears and the single gear tooth g⁹, attached to it, which, at each revolution of the lower wheel, as it passes from 9 to 0, engages the gear of the numeral wheel of higher denomination and was supposed to turn the higher gear one-tenth of a revolution, thus registering one greater.

On account of the gears G⁹, of one order and the gear tooth g⁹, of another order operating on the same numeral wheel gear, the transfer gears are arranged alternately on separate shafts, one at the side and one below the numeral wheels.

As a bottom line, the drawings and specification of the Ludlum patent disclose a daring scheme and the imagination of the inventor, but the means provided for transferring the tens without any control for the numeral wheels against over-rotation would make correct addition impossible.

Biography of Albert Ludlum

Albert Claude Ludlum was born on 13 May 1867, in Brooklyn, New York, to William Henry Ludlum (1836-1912), and Mary Ann Kellum Ludlum (1838-1911). Ludlam (later Ludlow and Ludlum) family were descendants of the early settler William Anthony Joseph Ludlam, (born 24 Feb 1627 in Matlock, Derbyshire, England—died 13 June 1667 in Southampton, New York), who moved to the New World in July 1648 (William and his sister Grace were passengers on the ship “Trail” from Matlock, Derby, England, to Boston). William Ludlam settled in Southampton, Long Island, New York, where in 1652 he purchased the local mill and Ludlam family became the millers of Southampton for several generations.

Albert Ludlum was educated in the public schools of New York, and in 1886 he was engaged as a clerk in the Federal National Shoe & Leather Bank of the City of New York (see the nearby image). In 1889 he joined as a clerk Kennedy & Pierce Company of Denver, Colorado, manufacturers of mining machinery. Ludlum later established the New York Engineering Company, a manufacturer of mining and other heavy machinery, in Yonkers, New York.

Besides the two above-mentioned patents for calculating machines, Albert Ludlum was a holder of many patents for mining machinery (suction elevator, drills, dredge, etc.).

Albert Ludlum married in 1890 Edith F. Ludlum (b. Sep. 1871), but they didn’t have children and later divorced. In 1916 Albert Ludlum married a second time to Frances Ludlum (b. 1894).

Albert Claude Ludlum died on 15 February 1928, in Manhattan, New York, and was buried in Prospect Cemetery, Jamaica, New York.