Category: Timeline Stories

In 1884, a young 22 years old machinist, while working with a planer (machine tool used for shaping or surfacing metal and other materials) in Ostrander and Huke machine workshop in Chicago, took note of how a planning machine controlled varying depths of cut and conceived an idea from watching its ratchet feed motion, which was indirectly responsible for the final solution of the multiple-order key-driven calculating machine. The idea struck him that a similar technique could be applied to the design of a calculating machine, a unique concept for its time.

The young man, whose name was Dorr Eugene Felt (1862-1930), after several months of thought, made a wooden model, from rubber bands, meat skewers, string, staples, and a macaroni box, which he finished early in 1885. This model (see the photo below) was called later the “macaroni box” model.

Let’s quote Dorr Felt himself:
Watching the planer-feed set me to scheming on ideas for a machine to simplify the invention hard grind of the bookkeeper in his day’s calculation of accounts.
I realized that for a machine to hold any value to an accountant, it must have greater capacity than the average expert accountant. Now I knew that many accountants could mentally add four columns of figures at a time, so I decided that I must beat that in designing my machine. Therefore, I worked on the principle of duplicate denominational orders that could be stretched to any capacity within reason. The plan I finally settled on is displayed in what is generally known as the ”Macaroni Box” model. This crude model was made under rather adverse circumstances.
The construction of such a complicated machine from metal, as I had schemed up, was not within my reach from a monetary standpoint, so I decided to put my ideas into wood.
It was near Thanksgiving Day of 1884, and I decided to use the holiday in the construction of the wooden model. I went to the grocer’s and selected a box which seemed to me to be about the right size for the casing. It was a macaroni box, so I have always called it the macaroni box model. For keys I procured some meat skewers from the butcher around the corner and some staples from a hardware store for the key guides and an assortment of elastic bands to be used for springs. When Thanksgiving day came I got up early and went to work with a few tools, principally a jack knife.
I soon discovered that there were some parts which would require better tools than I had at hand for the purpose, and when night came I found that the model I had expected to construct in a day was a long way from being complete or in working order. I finally had some of the parts made out of metal, and finished the model soon after New Year’s day, 1885.

When work slowed at O&H workshop, Felt connected with A. B. Lawther who, impressed with an elevator invention Felt had devised, gave him a place to work in return for an interest in any resulting invention. At some point, his old employer, Ostrander, suggested that Felt buy out Lawther’s interest and he did so by borrowing $800 from a cousin, Chauncy W. Foster. Apparently, this early “venture capital” was sufficient to finance the materials to build his first machines as well. Over the next two years, the design was refined into a metal mechanism while retaining its wooden case. Interestingly, Felt’s first patent in 1885 (USA Nr. 366945) would assign the invention to Foster and himself. The first practical model was ready in the fall of 1886 (see the nearby below).

In 1886 Charles Joseph DeBerard, an accountant and Vice President of Tarrant Foundry in Chicago introduced the young Dorr Felt to Robert Tarrant, owner of a machine shop and foundry. In 1887, Robert Tarrant, intrigued with Felt’s ideas, signed him on as a helper at $6 a week and gave him a bench in the rear of the shop where Felt could work on his invention. Over a period of time, Tarrant advanced Felt about $5000 for materials and parts and other expenses involved in the development of the calculating machine. Since Foster was anxious to get his investment back, this too was covered by Tarrant money. On November 28, 1887, a partnership was formed and 14 months later, incorporated as the Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Company (400 shares of stock, Felt getting 225, Tarrant 150 shares, and DeBerard the remaining 25 shares.

By the end of 1887 four of the eight machines that the company had built that year were installed in the U.S. Treasury offices. The remaining four machines were then bought by Chicago businesses. These businesses soon found they needed skilled operators to get the maximum benefit from their $400 purchases. This was one of the first times businesses needed skilled operators in such a capacity and training was given as necessary by the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company (see the nearby drawing).

Comptometers were available in 8, 10, 12, and even 16-column versions as well as for British money (sterling), fractions, etc., on special order. The earliest and simplest Comptometer was produced from 1887 thru 1903 and is wooden-cased (see the photo below). This earliest model had round key-stems with springs between the keytops and the keyplate. The first examples had keytops of the “typewriter” variety with a metal ring surrounding a celluloid inset containing the character. Near the end of production, composition keytops were used. Some 6500 of the earlier wooden case models were sold over a sixteen-year period.

The A-model (see the photo below) was placed on the market in January 1904 and produced thru September 1906. Some 2000-3000 A-model machines were produced during its lifespan. The “A” was the first of the steel case models which was to become the standard for the remainder of all “shoebox” models. The design was covered by Patent Nr. 733379 and was a material factor in a later lawsuit with Burroughs. It is distinguished by the novel glass slab dial cover and elongated hanging decimal point indications. “Carry inhibitors” appeared as short protruding tabs for use during complementary subtraction. With this model, the spring-loaded keys are replaced with flat-stamped metal key-stems. The spring mechanism was redesigned being located at the bottom of the key-stems inside the case. A significant new feature dubbed duplex, allowed keys in different columns to be operated at the same time. This made multiplying a practical operation for Comptometers since shipping and billing almost always involved some quantity times a unit weight or price. Felt’s genius is clearly at work here. Whereas the original model recorded the keypress on the downstroke, this model recorded on the upstroke! Beyond this, there were no safeguards and keys had to be given a full downstroke to prevent errors in operation, a very real concern that would not be addressed for another ten years.

The B-model was placed on the market in September 1906 and introduced the “lazy-s” register cover, which was the final major case change for shoebox Comptometers. Just below the row of 1-keys were new small, shiny decimal pointers and “thumb-fitted” carry-inhibiters. These were important improvements, that improved operator efficiency. Apparently, some machines had a clean front panel while others carried 4 screws as needed by the A-model to hold the glass cover clamps. It provided no oil holes in the dial cover but had two in the keyplate above the 9-row and one or two on the right side. The action of the canceling handle was particularly noisy and would produce a factory-like racket in offices when several were in operation simultaneously. It would seem that this model was produced only thru May of 1909 when the next (C) model came on the market.

The C-model of the Comptometer (so-called “C-regular”) (see the nearby photo) started in 1909 and was followed 20 months later by the model “C-light”. Some minor mods were made, including the introduction of celluloid keys to replace the composition keys employed previously and a lighter key-depression. As with the B-models, a machine may or may not have carried those useless front panel screws. And for those fascinated by the history of oil holes, the C-light model sported some 29 of them in the dial cover and keyplate presumably in response to an almost complete lack in the prior model.

At first sight, the D-model (see the nearby photo) looks exactly like the F-model. But this is not true. The first visual clue is the missing “Controlled Key”, normally found next to the 9-key of the rightmost column. A second clue is that the D-model machine is almost 1 kg lighter than its F-model predecessor, each of its 8 columns having a quarter of a pound fewer parts. Both in cost of parts and assembly labor, it was surely cheaper to produce. Since no more than 153 of this model were ever made, one could speculate on why it was produced at all. A reasonable theory is that (ignoring the ill-fated E-model) the “D” and the “F” machines were introduced simultaneously at different price levels, both somewhat higher than the C-model being replaced. For customers who felt the Controlled Key feature might not be worth the extra expense, the D-model was available, at least for a brief period. It was probably dropped from production due to a lack of demand as the Controlled Key was highly favored by the customers.

The arriving in 1913 E-model (see the photo below), was a short-lived model. While reportedly “on the market” from March of 1913 thru May 1915, the relatively small number of survivors would indicate that this model was less than a roaring success. It was introduced with one of the earliest color ads (see the lower image) and appeared on the back cover of the Aug 24, 1913 issue of Sunday Magazine of the Chicago Record-Herald. It seems that it proved too expensive and too tricky to manufacture, besides that field maintenance could have become a problem as the odd keytops may have broken more easily under heavy and constant use.

The F-model (see the nearby photo) arrived in May 1915. This machine was destined to bring volume production to the F&T factory. If machines were produced in strict sequence, sales of F-models would appear to have outpaced all previous models combined. It was in production thru the end of the decade. A major feature was the presence of the “Controlled Key” (introduced on the ill-fated E-model) which locked the keyboard when any key was not fully depressed. Since these machines were operated very rapidly by trained operators, and had the ability to detect a partial stroke and the possibility for immediate correction without losing the running sum, they were warmly received. It may well have been the principal reason for the great popularity of this model over its lifespan.

The H-model appeared in 1920 as F&T’s first postwar model. It is easily distinguished from prior models by the presence of the Comptometer script logo on the front and back of the case. However, improved operational characteristics were to largely determine its fate in the marketplace. The forward placement of the clearing lever allowed the operator to zero the register with a single motion of the little finger, without altering her hand position over the keyboard. Internally, less obvious improvements included audible, tactile, and visual clear signals (bell, key pressure, and slight offset of register zeros). All these refinements improved operator speed and accuracy but at some cost in the complexity of the mechanism, which required the front of the machine to be extended by about 1 cm. Support for this major step forward included one of the most detailed technical manuals for mechanical devices ever produced. The H-model was a big hit with users and justifiably so what with its many operational and aesthetic improvements. It was produced until 1926.

The final mass-produced machine of so-called ‘shoebox’ models was the long-lived “J” (see the nearby photo) that first appeared in February of 1926. Clearly intended to replace the H-model, it was set off visually from its predecessors by its green keys which replaced the traditional black. However, this distinction is not a reliable model indicator since key-stems on F, H, and J models were identical and repairmen often simply replaced keys with what was in their bag. Although the “J” had no major new features, many operational aspects were markedly improved and it received wide acceptance in the late “roaring 20s”. The model was in constant production until the start of WWII concurrently with the newer electric (K) and “streamlined” (M) models. Many of the survivor examples were still in operation at major US corporations until the late 1970s, a remarkable record spanning some fifty years of useful service.

The first change to the shape of the case came with the K-model (see the photo below) introduced in September 1934. No doubt, a different shape was required to accommodate the changes to the mechanism needed for its electric design. Felt had resisted adding a motor-driven model during the 1920s and this late introduction had only modest success.

The Model ‘M’ (see the nearby photo) was introduced just prior to WWII and had a new style of case and the frames were redesigned accordingly. Early models had steel segment levers and numeral wheels with an actual zero embossed on the wheel. That is, they did not have any indication if a number existed to the left of the machine. The lack of indication of numbers to the left of a series of zeros evidently presented a problem and a hollow zero was introduced with a numeral wheel shutter. As soon as a column was operated all shutters to the right of the numeral dropped, giving a distinctive change of color in the open zeros. This made errors in reading any large number with many zeros less likely. Once WWII was well on the way, materials became hard to get and one was encouraged to find ways of reducing the amount of metal used in essential products. The designers at Felt&Tarrant punched out holes all along the length of the previously solid segment levers similar to the moves made to lighten an airfoil section on an airplane. Because this weakened the horizontal and lateral strength two ridges were pressed along the length giving some stability. After WWII, aluminum replaced the steel on these two items.

Finally in 1946, F&T “went public” and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange the following year. In the spring of 1950, Felt & Tarrant released the 3D11 (see the photo below) as a successor to the Model-M. It had a redesigned error control mechanism to allow the operator to hold her fingers on the keys when correcting an error. In other words, the error control mechanism was operated in a pseudo-automatic manner. The style of the case also changed slightly and was lighter.

In the 1960s the recently renamed Comptometer Corporation faced serious problems, both at home and in foreign markets. Some 30+ years after his death, Dorr Felt’s beloved Comptometer would soon sink beneath the waves of progress. The mid-’60s saw very unexpected changes take place. All the previous F&T models were dropped and four new models were introduced. Anita mechanical/electronic machine, and manual and electric machines, using the mechanism of the Control Data ‘Sumlock’ machine in a buff restyled case with two-tone buff extruded keys in lieu of the two-tone green on the Sumlock. The logo was still Comptometer but actually, it was the Sumlock with some minor cosmetic changes.

In 1889 Felt patented a printing version of the Comptometer, the so-called Comptogrpah (see the nearby photo), and the machine reached the market in 1891. Felt and Tarrant made every endeavor to establish the machine but without great success. This adventure, which came perilously close to dooming both Felt & Tarrant and the Comptometer, this impossible dream would occupy the talents of Felt for the better part of 15 long years. During this period, Felt and Burroughs engaged in lengthy and costly legal disputes about the various patents. In 1902 Felt and Tarrant parted ways, with Felt retaining the company they had set up and all rights to the Comptometer, and Tarrant starting the Comptograph Company, which concentrated on the version of the machine with an attached printer. By 1914 the Comptograph Company had ceased trading.

As a consequence of the high efficiency attainable by this machine, it has been repeatedly barred from competition in great exhibitions of contrivances for the accomplishment of similar results. This decision was made by the governors of such exhibitions, notably at the first annual office appliance and business system show in Chicago in March 1905, and at the convention of the Incorporated Accountants of Michigan in Detroit, in August 1907. Such a decision as this, made by a committee of men familiar with the requirements and performances of selected office appliances, is to be explained by the fact that, whereas most manufacturers of adding machines claim a speed of 120 numeral wheel movements per minute, the comptometer, in the hands of an expert operator, can attain as high a speed as 400 or 500 numeral wheel movements per minute with perfect accuracy of the result. The comptometer has repeatedly won the highest awards at trade and international expositions, and several medals have been issued to the inventor in recognition of his achievements in mechanical science. Notable among these may be mentioned the John Scott Medal of the Franklin Institute, awarded by the city of Philadelphia in 1889; the gold medal of the Columbian Exposition in 1893; a gold medal by the Lewis and Clark Centennial in 1905; and the Grand prize of the International Exposition at Turin in 1911.

The mechanism of the machine is illustrated in the reproduction (see the lower figures) of the drawings of Felt’s patent Nr. 371496. The specification of this patent shows that it was applied for in March 1887, and issued on 11 October 1887.

The constructional scheme of the mechanism consists of a series of numeral wheels, marked A in the patent drawings. Each wheel is provided with a ratchet wheel, and co-acting with the ratchet is a pawl mounted on a disc E1, carried by a pinion, which is rotatably mounted on the same axis as the numeral wheel. The arrangement of these parts is such that a rotating motion given any of the pinions E1 in a clockwise direction, as shown in the drawings, would give a like action to their respective numeral wheels, but any motion of the pinions in an anti-clockwise direction would have no effect on the numeral wheels, owing to back-stop pawls K, and stop-pins T, provided to allow movement of the numeral wheels in but one direction.

Co-acting with each pinion E1 is shown a long lever D, pivoted at the rear of the machine and provided with a segmental gear rack that meshes with the teeth of the pinion E.

Each lever is provided with a spring S, which normally holds the front or rack end upward in the position shown in Fig. 1, and has co-acting with it a series of nine depressable keys which protrude through the casing and contact with the upper edge of the lever.

The arrangement of the keys with their segment levers provides that the depression of any key will depress the segment lever of that order, which in turn will rotate the pinion E1 and its numeral wheel.

While this arrangement is such that each key of a series gives a different degree of leverage action to the segment lever, and in turn a degree of rotation to the numeral wheel of the same order in accordance with the numerical value of the key depressed, it may be conceived that the momentum set up by the quick stroke of a key would set the numeral wheel spinning perhaps two or three revolutions, or at any rate way beyond the point it should stop at to register correctly.

To preserve the correct actuation of the mechanism and overcome its momentum, Felt provided a detent-toothed lever for each numeral wheel, which will be found marked J1 in the drawings. To this lever he linked another lever G, which extended below the keys, and arranged the length of the key stems so that when each key had revolved the numeral wheel the proper distance, the key will have engaged the lever G, and through the link connection will have caused the detent tooth of the lever J1 to engage one of the pins T, of the numeral wheel, thus bringing the numeral wheel and the whole train of mechanism to a dead stop.

This combination was timed so that the (1) key would add one, the (2) key would add two, etc., up to nine for the (9) key. Thus the prime actuation of each wheel was made safe and positive.

The carrying mechanism consisted of a lever and ratchet pawl action, constructed of the parts M, m₂, operated by a spring m, the pawl acting upon the numeral wheel pins T, to ratchet the wheel forward under the spring power. The power in the spring was developed from the rotation of the lower wheel, which through the means of an involute cam, attached to the left side of each wheel, operated the carrying lever in the opposite direction to that in which it was operated by the spring. As the carrying lever passed the highest point of the cam spiral and dropped off, the stored power in the spring retracted the lever M, and the pawl m₂, acting on the higher order wheel pins T, and moved it one-tenth of a revolution.

This part of the mechanism was in principle an old and commonly-used device for a one-step ratchet motion used in the carry of the tens. It served as a means of storing and transferring power from the lower wheel to actuate the higher wheel in a carrying operation, but a wholly unqualified action without control.

In the Felt’s machine a spring-actuated lever N, mounted on the same axis as the carrying lever, and provided with a detent stop-hook at its upper end, served to engage the numeral wheel at the end of its carried action, and normally hold it locked.

An arm or pin P, fixed in and extending from the left side of the carrying lever and through a hole in the detent lever, acted to withdraw the detent lever from its locking engagement with the numeral wheel as the carrying lever reached the extreme point of retraction, thus the wheel to be carried was unlocked.

Pivoted to the side of the detent lever is a catch O. This catch or latch is so arranged as to hook on to a cross-rod q, specially constructed to co-act with the catch and hold the detent-lever against immediate relocking of the numeral wheel as the carrying lever and pawl act in a carrying motion. The latch has a tail or arm p, which co-acts with the pin P on the carrying lever in such a way as to release the latch as the carrying lever finishes its carrying function.

Thus the detent lever N is again free to engage one of the control or stop-pins T to stop and lock the carried numeral wheel when the carrying lever and pawl, through the action of the spring stored in the carrying, has moved the wheel the proper distance.

A lot of functions take place in 1/165 of a second, but it worked. The timing of the stop and locking detents, of course, was one of the finest features.

The normal engagement of the carrying detent, it may be understood, would prevent the movement of the wheel by key action or prime actuation, but the patent shows how Felt overcame this. The carrying stop and locking detent lever N is provided with a cam-arm or pin, which was arranged to co-act with the cam disc E (see Fig. 1), fast to the prime actuating pinion. The cam surface was short and performed its function during a short lost motion arranged to take place before the ratchet pawl would pick up and move the numeral wheel under key actuation.

The camming action was outward and away from the center and thus released the carrying stop from its locking position with the numeral wheel, and continued rotation of the pinion and cam disc would hold the lockout of action until the parts had returned to normal.

With the return action of the keys, segment lever, pinion, and cam disc, through the action of a spring attached to the segment lever, the carrying stop detent will again engage and lock the numeral wheel.

Biography of Dorr Eugene Felt

Dorr Eugene Felt was born in Beloit, Rock County, Wisconsin on 18 March 1862. He was the eldest of eight children of Eugene Kincaid (11 April 1838-21 July 1915) and Elizabeth (Libbie) Morris-Felt (29 April 1839-1 March 1920), married on 16 May 1861. Dorr Felt is a descendant in the eighth generation of George Felt (1609-1693), a native of Bedfordshire, England, who came to Massachusetts Bay Colony in about 1630.

Dorr’s father—Eugene Kincaid Felt, (born in Webster, New York, son of Asa George Felt and Harriet (Foster) Felt) has been engaged principally in farming and lumbering through most of his life. He would attend Beloit College before working as a farmer in Newark, Wisconsin, where he removed from his native place in 1846. Besides farming, he served in Wisconsin as superintendent of public instruction of Newark, town and county supervisor, as a member of the State legislature in 1872-83, during the latter year also as chairman of its committee on railroads. Having removed to Kansas in 1883, he was engaged in farming and lumber business and was a delegate to the State Republican Convention in 1888.

Dorr Felt spent his boyhood days on the farm of his father and was educated at common schools of his native county, supplemented by one year in high school at Beloit. In the spring of 1878, he was working as an apprentice in a local Beloit machine shop, where his mechanical bend was nurtured and rewarded. In 1880 he left home to make a place in the world for himself, having only 50 cents in his pocket. He moved to the nearest “big town”, Chicago, to secure employment and advance his keen interest in machine design.

In Chicago he started work with the Pullman Company on a maintenance crew, eventually being promoted to foreman, a job which he left to become a sewing machine salesman. The life of a traveling salesman was not to be and he soon returned to his love of machines, taking a position with Ostrander and Huke at a machine shop that used planning machines to cut metal to varying depths.

During all of these early jobs, Felt had been interested in inventions and had worked on a number of ideas, including an elevator and some thoughts on calculating machines. The calculating machine Felt had in mind was based on some of the mechanisms used by the planning machines. These ideas did not go unnoticed and Felt was approached by A. B. Lawther who offered him a place to work in return for shares in any resulting inventions. Felt took Lawther up on his offer and by 1885 he had produced a working model of his calculating machine, which will be later on called the Comptometer and will make him a famous and rich man. In 1887 Felt together with the rich local businessman Robert Tarrant (see the nearby photo) incorporated Felt & Tarrant Mfg. Co., which sole product was the Comptometer.

Felt has always been an interested student of live topics of the day. He was a director of the US Chamber of Commerce and his opinions are sought and carefully considered by his fellow businessmen, and he has frequently made suggestions of value to the President and national lawmakers. Notable occasions of public protests on his part were his letters to President Wilson on the provisions of the Clayton Bill touching patents and interlocking directorates, provisions which, as he recognized, might embarrass some of the greater corporations or “trusts,” but would certainly work considerable hardship for other classes of businessmen, who have no intention of conducting “repressive monopolies,” or of stifling just competition. He also expressed himself strongly at a meeting of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association on 7 August 1914, against the proposal to allow foreign merchant ships to sail under the American flag.

Dorr Felt has been a wide traveler in various parts of the world, including America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Felt was a naturalist ahead of his time. He loved the rolling grassy dunes and dark green forests along Michigan’s west coast and purchased approximately 1000 acres where he constructed a 12,000+ square foot mansion. Today it’s well known as the Felt Mansion in Southwest Michigan between Holland and Saugatuck. Felt was a member of the Chicago Athletic Association, the Union League and City Clubs of Chicago, the Wisconsin Society of Chicago, the Sons of the American Revolution, and other organizations, social, business, and educational. He has been granted 46 patents in the US and 25 in foreign countries, related mainly to calculating machines, but also for a lathe chuck, a coupon cutter, gas meters, and a camera diaphragm controller.

Dorr Felt married on 15 January 1891, to Agnes McNulty (1861-1928), daughter of George W. McNulty, of Bellevue, Ta. They have four daughters: Virginia (1892-1955), Elizabeth (1893-1966), Constance (1896-1981), and Dorothea (1903-1942). After the death of Agnes on 19 August 1928, the next year Felt married in Paris for the second time to Jeanne, but soon died.

Dorr Eugene Felt died on 7 August 1930, of a stroke, in Chicago, and was buried in Rosehill Cemetery and Mausoleum.

Alonzo Johnson, a machinist from Springfield, Mass., is a holder of two US patents for calculating devices: patent Nr. 73732 from 28 Jan. 1868 and patent Nr. 85229 from 22 Dec. 1868). The first patent was granted to Alonzo Johnson and James Loomis as co-inventor (James A. Loomis (29 Dec 1812-9 Aug 1892) was a machinist and wheelwright from Springfield, Mass.) The patent models of both devices (up to 1880, the US Patent Office required inventors to submit a model with their patent application) are still preserved in the National Museum of American History, Washington, D. C. (see the nearby images).

The first calculating device, patented by Johnson and Loomis (with Charles Gifford of Gardiner, Maine, as assignee), was used to add numbers up to 99. It was manufactured by James Loomis and Henry Conkey, another machinist from Springfield. It was a brass and steel device with overall measurements of 4.3 cm x 18 cm x 18 cm.

The device is painted black on the reverse side and has a green paper label glued with directions for use. It has also a support attached to the back so that it can sit at an angle.

The adder consists of two concentric brass discs, one rotating inside the other. The rim of the outer disc has the numbers from 0 to 99 engraved around its edge. The inner disc has 100 small holes marked evenly around its edge, which are also numbered 0 to 99. Two steel arms pivot at the center of the inner disc. The longer arm has a pin on the underside that fits into the holes and a small knob on the upper side so that it can be rotated. A protruding pin set at 0 in the outer circle stops the motion of this arm.

The device has a carry mechanism. When the total on the inner disc exceeds 99, the smaller arm advances one digit, indicating hundreds. Hundreds cannot be entered directly. Sums of up to 9999 can be indicated.

The second calculating machine of Alonzo Johnson is essentially an improved version of the first. It was a brass, wood, and steel device with overall measurements of 16.5 cm x 18.5 cm x 18.5 cm, used to add numbers up to 99.

This adder of Johnson also has as its base two concentric brass discs, one rotating inside the other. Again, the rim of the outer disc has the numbers from 0 to 99 engraved around its edge. The inner disc has 100 small holes (also numbered 0 to 99) marked around its edge. Two steel arms pivot at the center of the disc. The longer arm has a pin on the underside that fits into the holes and a small knob on the upper side so that it can be rotated. A protruding pin set at 0 in the outer circle stops the motion of the arm.

The carry mechanism of the device is implemented by means of a smaller arm, which advances one digit, indicating hundreds, when the total on the inner disc exceeds 99. The number of hundreds entered appears in a window in a small disc that is on top of three relatively small gears concentric to the large discs. Hundreds cannot be entered directly. The adder has a big handle that projects from the center of the back.

Biography of Alonzo Johnson

Alonzo Johnson Johnson was born on 12 February 1828, in Bangor, a small town in Maine. He was the son of Lovisa (Underwood) Johnson (26 October 1805-20 April 1835) and Cicero Dolliver Johnson (17 July 1800-30 November 1884).

Dolliver Johnson from Bradford, Vermont, (a son of Joseph Johnson (1765-1827) and Betsey Beckford (1768-1854)) was a railroad engineer at Boston & Worcester Railroad, then a superintendent of locomotive power on the Fitchburg Railroad, and finally associated with the Illinois Central at Duluth, Wis. Dolliver Johnson (a Charter Member of Mount Tabor Masonic Lodge) was also a good mechanic, machinist, and farmer. Alonzo had two younger native brothers: James Underwood Johnson (b. 1831) and George Henry Johnson (born and died in 1835), and another brother and two sisters from the second marriage of his father (after the early death of his first wife Lovisa in 1835, Dolliver Johnson married to Lucretia Abbot, on 17 October 1837).

Alonzo Johnson obviously inherited the engineering talents of his father and became an imaginative man and a very good machinist, because, besides the above-mentioned patents for calculators, he is the holder of eight more patents for nut lock (pat. US188055), spindle fastener (US203160), machine for slitting lock nuts (US231492), car brakes (US235152 and US247830), card cutter (US241372), sash fastener (US256144), and gumming device (US397798).

On 27 Oct. 1850, Alonzo Johnson married Sarah E. Sinclair (b. 13 Dec. 1827–died 1902) at Canton, Mass. They had three children: Melissa H. (b. 16 June 1854), Charles B. (b. 16 March 1857–died 1919), and Laura Lovisa (b. 7 Nov. 1858).

Alonzo Johnson died in 1905 in Springfield, Mass., and was buried in the local Oak Grove Cemetery.

The Hopkins brothers, William and Hubert, from Saint Louis, are the holders of more than 30 patents for adding machines and calculating mechanisms, mainly for 10-key calculators. Naturally, Hopkins’ remarkable contribution to the field of mechanical calculators had been started as early as the 1870s with the older brother, William Wallace Hopkins (1850-1916).

William Hopkins used to work as a minister, but was interested in mechanics since his youth. Interestingly, there are quite a few ministers and inventors of calculating machines, let’s mention only Wilhelm Schickard, Philipp Matthäus Hahn, Johann Reichold, and Michael Bouchet.

William Hopkins’ first patents were granted in the 1870s, and one of the early patents was namely for an adding machine (pat. No. US203151 from 1878, not for a key-driven, but for a chain-driven device), but he had also patents for other machines. The chain adder was intended for both addition and subtraction and had a carry mechanism. However, the patent does not mention any mechanism for borrowing numbers, which may have discouraged both users and investors. William Hopkins moved to St. Louis in 1885, continuing to invent during those years and trying to find better ways to make an advanced adding machine.

It seems at the end of the 1880s William Hopkins saw the Burroughs Registering Accountant and decided to design a simpler, cheaper, and more sophisticated, but easier-to-use keyboard calculator. In any event, it was in 1890 that Hopkins made his first rough sketches of a printing desktop adding machine. He filed his first patent for a key-driven adding, subtracting, and recording machine on 4 October 1892. The patent (see the patent of Hopkins No. US517383) was granted in March 1894.

William ordered the first model of his keyboard calculator to be built by his brother Hubert and another machinist, and then he showed it to St. Louis patent attorney A.C. Fowler. Fowler was much impressed and, in turn, showed it to officials of the St. Louis Mechanics’ Bank. They thought that the idea had possibilities, but that a commercially successful machine would require a way of setting the place value of digits automatically. Hopkins then designed a set of tabulating or order keys. Operators pushed a key to shift the carriage to the appropriate leftmost position and then started setting digit keys. In the spring of 1891, Hopkins hired James Whitelaw, another St. Louis machinist, to build a model based on his new design. Whitelaw completed it in January 1893 at a cost of 1000 USD, which the stockholders of the Standard Adding Machine Company (a company founded by William in 1892) paid. For the next year or so, Mechanics’ Bank used the machine on a trial basis.

Standard Adding Machine Co. became the first company to release to the market a successful 10-key adding machine, but it needed quite a few years to achieve its goals (the first popular model was launched in 1901). In 1903 the company moved to a new building on Spring Avenue, St. Louis. The first model soon became quite popular and was followed by others (see the nearby image). The Standard was the first 10-key, visible printing adding machine to achieve wide distribution.

The machine of Hopkins had only 10 number keys (compared to 81 on the Burroughs machine), subtracted as well as added, and printed the numbers entered and the results on a paper tape visible to the operator. The Hopkins’ original construction won an international grand prize during the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair and was heralded as a modern life preserver in an office journal.

The ten keys are placed in one horizontal row, underneath which are the nine tabulator keys. In order to enter a number, the corresponding tabulator key must first be pressed. For example, if the amount to be added has four places, then first the tabulator key marked 4 must be pressed. The amount is entered from left to right. For example, if the amount is 743.10, then the digits 7, 4, 3, 1, 0 are typed one after another exactly as they would be typed on a typewriter.

The machine was produced in relatively large numbers between 1903 and 1913 (e.g. by the beginning of 1905, the company had already sold over 3400 machines), and initially, Standard Adding Machine Co. prospered and achieved a big success because its machines were much less expensive to manufacture and simpler to use. However, later several other companies released more advanced machines. By 1907, the company sold models that would add fractions as well as whole numbers and that would subtract, multiply, and divide as well as add. Prices ranged from $185 to $250.32. When in 1916 William Hopkins died, Standard Adding Machine Co. began to decline, to be closed in 1921.

In the early 20th century, as William Hopkins took out patents for brakes, his younger brother Hubert turned his attention to inventing a combination adding machine and typewriter. In January 1902, he demonstrated his quite advanced 10-key adding-printing machine to St. Louis patent attorney John D. Rippey and to James L. Dalton, a successful merchant from Poplar Bluff, Missouri. They were sufficiently impressed that Dalton agreed to become president of the Addograph Manufacturing Co., which was established in St. Louis that December. Rippey set about applying for patents. Simon Lederer served as vice president of Addograph and Hopkins as treasurer. However, after the patent application was filed in 1902 and 1903, a lengthy patent infringement suit was initiated by the competitors, so the patent was granted as late as 1912 (patent No. US1039130). Meanwhile, Addograph Manufacturing Co. disintegrated (Lederer and Hopkins were hired by a competitor), so the patent was implemented in the quite popular Dalton adding machine, which proved to be the most important of the printing, 10-key adding machines.

William Hopkins didn’t take part in Addograph, but he had his own interest in combining an adding machine and a typewriter. In May 1904, he applied for a patent for a “multiplying and typewriting machine” (Patent #844519, granted 19 February 1907). With the backing of John C. Moon, president of the Moon Brothers Carriage Company of St. Louis, William and Hubert Hopkins organized the Moon–Hopkins Manufacturing Company of Missouri. Hubert Hopkins took out a series of patents for machines that would type letters, add, subtract, multiply, and round off the results of multiplication to the nearest cent (the key pressed for this last operation was known as the “decimating” key). In 1906 or 1907, the firm reorganized as the Moon–Hopkins Billing Machine Company and soon began production of a remarkable calculator—Moon–Hopkins billing machine.

Moon–Hopkins machine might well be described as the apotheosis of St. Louis adding machine maker’s art. It was a large, heavy, glass-encased machine that was designed specifically to do the routine work of billing. For this purpose, it not only carried out the functions of adding machines but incorporated other functions. Like Burroughs, it added and printed the results of the addition. Like the Standard and the Dalton, it had only 10-digit keys for entering terms to be added. As with the Dalton, digits were entered only by pressing digit keys, with no separate key or keys required to indicate the place value. As with the Universal, one could type out several parallel columns of numbers. Indeed, on the Moon–Hopkins, the digits added or multiplied could be printed going across the page rather than in columns. The machine initially was driven by a hand crank. However, by 1911, it came equipped with an electric drive. Moreover, the Moon–Hopkins combined an adding machine with a typewriter and also could multiply digits together directly, rather than by repeated addition.

Biography of William Hopkins

William Wallace Hopkins was born on 16 November 1850, in Boone County, Indiana, USA, to Albert Hopkins (1818-1905), a farmer, and Margaret Ann Caldwell-Hopkins, both from Nicholas, Kentucky. Margaret was born in Carlisle, Nicholas, Kentucky, on 21 December 1830 to Alexander Caldwell (1805-1865) and Martha Coshow (1802-1894). Albert and Margaret spent their last years at the house of his son William in St Louis, Missouri, where Albert passed away on 21 Apr. 1905, and his wife on 19 May 1907.

William was the first child of the family, and he had four brothers—Edgar Thomas (1854-1928), Hubert (1859-1930), Charles (1864-1865), and Frank (1869-1922), and three sisters—Martha Alice (1852-1914), Myra Vietta (1857-1939), and Addie (1862-1877).

William was raised on the farm of his parents in north central Indiana and had attended Butler College in Indianapolis in 1868, but ill health forced him to leave before graduation. He was interested in mechanics and construction of machines since his youth, but became a missionary of the Christian Church, working first in Minnesota and then in Wisconsin. The Christian Church was a Protestant denomination that had emerged from dissident Presbyterian congregations in the 1830s and flourished on the U.S. frontier. The church had no formal ecclesiastical structure, and pastors often were not paid.

William Hopkins was no exception. He first supported himself largely by teaching. Hopkins’s parents, sick and in financial difficulty, asked him to return to Indiana in about 1875. He settled in Thorntown, a hamlet not far from his birthplace. Hopkins had never been in robust health, and illness forced him to walk with a cane for most of his life. Perhaps, for this reason, he considered invention as a source of sustenance.

Hopkins’ first patent, taken out in 1878, was for a small chain-driven adding machine. William Hopkins had somewhat more success with his 1879 patent for a knockdown chair and with several patents for scales he took out between 1880 and 1882. He assigned the chair patent to the Fort Madison Chair Company of Fort Madison, Iowa, and the scale patents to the Hopkins Improved Scale Company of Thorntown.

The Hopkins Improved Scale Company did not prosper, and the Hopkins family soon migrated to Kansas in search of a new home. In the late 1870s, Rev. William Hopkins lived in Bourbon County, Kansas, where he worked as an evangelist and pastor, before moving with his family to St. Louis in 1885, accepting the position of a chaplain and then a pastor of St. Louis Second Christian Church. He continued to invent during those years, trying to find better ways to make an adding machine. In the mid-1890s, Hopkins left Second Christian Church and became assistant editor of the company, that published the weekly newspaper The Christian Evangelist.

In St. Louis William Hopkins joined B. H. Ward and J. A. Butts in starting a short-lived mathematical instrument firm known as W. W. Hopkins & Co. In 1887, William Hopkins’s brothers, machinists Frank and Hubert, moved to St. Louis. Hubert Hopkins would also become an inventor of computing devices. During these years, William Hopkins continued to invent, taking out two patents for an electric railway in 1888.

In the early 1890s (the first records are from 1892), William Hopkins founded Standard Adding Machine Company in Illinois, later re-based on Spring Avenue, St. Louis (later became New Standard Adding Machine Company), which was the first company to release to the market a successful 10-key adding machine, launched in 1902. The Standard machine achieved a big success because it was much less expensive to manufacture and simpler to use.

Around 1900 William Hopkins turned his attention to brakes, taking out several brake patents between 1902 and 1904 and establishing the short-lived Hopkins Brake Company.

William Hopkins married in April 1874, in Hersey, St. Croix County, Wisconsin, to a local girl—Tamara Losina Adams (1855-1931), a daughter of Sarles Travers Adams (1812-1882), and Mary Harrison (1813-1883). The couple had five children: Albert Addison (1875-1936), William Francis (1877-1964), Nellie (1880-1962), Ethel (b. 1883), and Minnie (1888-1974).

William Hopkins was a holder of ten patents for calculating machines. His younger brother—Hubert H. Hopkins (born 1 Nov. 1859 – died 27 Feb. 1930), joined him in St. Louis in 1887 and worked as a machinist, becoming also a famous inventor of calculating machines.

William Wallace Hopkins died on 10 November 1916, in Saint Louis, Missouri, and was buried in Zion Cemetery.

Michael Bouchet (1827-1903) from Louisville, Kentucky, USA, was a holder of two USA patents for single-column adding devices (known also as single digit adders)—Patent №251823 from 1882, and Patent №314561 from 1885. According to his biographer, Bouchet was responsible for the financial affairs of his diocese in the 1860s and he devised an adding machine to assist in keeping these accounts but applied for patents many years later. Moreover, in the 1890s Bouchet (in collaboration with Dr. A. C. Schumann, of Louisville, a builder of various instruments, such as compasses, microscopes, and calculating machines) invented another machine, which adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides.

The first patent of Bouchet (from 1882) was assigned 1/2 to Bennett Downs Mattingly (1854-1891), a well-known local distiller, who obviously financed the development of the machine. The second calculating device of Michael Bouchet was in fact an improved version of the first. Later on, Bouchet deeded 1/3 of the rights of his second Patent №314561 to M. F. Madden, owner of the company M. F. Madden & Co of Louisville, Kentucky, which advertised, produced, and sold (for $17 each, quite a reasonable price for this time) devices from 1887 until 1890 by the name Madden Adding Machine (see the photo below).

The adding machine of Bouchet was a metal, brass, and plastic device, with dimensions: 5.3 cm x 13.3 cm x 8.5 cm.

The nine keys with plastic key covers for entering the numbers are arranged in two rows and are attached to the levers, which have from 1 to 9 teeth. When a key is pressed, these teeth will be engaged with the openings of a rod, which is placed to the length of the box, and the rod will be rotated to an angle, according to the number of the teeth. To this rod is attached a digital wheel. The tens carry mechanism can perform a carry to the second and third wheel, so the result mechanism is 3-positioned with a maximum value of 999. Left of the wheels is a lever-driven tack and pinion zeroing mechanism.

The segmental gear racks L, are normally out of mesh with the pinion I, and are fast to the key levers E, in such a manner that the first depression of the key causes its rack to rock forward and engage with the pinion I, and further depression moves the rack upward and rotates the pinion and units numeral wheel.

The Bouchet’s machine was manufactured and sold to some extent, but never became popular, as it lacked capacity. Machines of such limited capacity could not compete with ordinary accountants, much less with those who could mentally add from 2 to 4 columns at a clip. Aside from the capacity feature, there was another reason why these single-order machines were useless, except to those who could not add mentally. Multiple forms of calculation, that is, multiplication and division, call for a machine having a multiplicity of orders. The capacity of a single order would be 9×9, which requires no machine at all, as every 7 y.o. child knows that. Multiplying multi-digital numbers, however, is a different thing, and it requires a multiple-order calculator.

After the three first key-operated calculating machines in the world, invented in Europe (see machines of James White, Luigi Torchi, and Jean-Baptiste Schwilgué), there are a number of patents issued in the United States on machines of this class, besides the devices of Parmelee from 1850, Hill from 1857 and Winter from 1859, already examined in this section.

All of these machines varied in construction, but not in principle. Some were really operative and others inoperative, but all lacked what may be termed useful capacity. Some of them are even preserved to the present time. Such machines, of course, never became popular because of their limited capacity, which required many extra movements and caused mental strain without offering an increase in speed of calculation as compared with expert mental calculation.

It seems strange that up to 1887 the only operative key-driven machines were single-digit adders and nobody managed to invent and produce a multi-column device. It is folly to think that all these inventors never had the thought or wish to produce such a machine. It is more reasonable to believe there was not one of them, who did not have the wish and who did not give deep thought to the subject. There is every reason to believe that some of them tried it, but there is no doubt that if they did it was a failure, or there would be evidence of it in some form.

Biography of Michael Bouchet

Monsignor Michael Bouchet must have been an interesting character, a natural mechanical genius, in addition to his great ability as a churchman. He was a Frenchman, born in the farm of his parents Michael and Jeanne Saby-Bouchet in Le Milliazeix, Miremont, Auvergne, on 23 August 1827. At the age of 15 Bouchet began his studies for the priesthood, and two years later entered the College of Billion, where he spent one year.

For the next three years, he studied at the Petit séminaire de Clermont (Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme), where he continued for five terms. In the early part of 1853 he, with eight others, was invited by Bishop Spalding, at that time Bishop of Louisville, who was in France seeking clerical candidates for his Diocese, to come to America.

Bouchet immigrated to the USA in May 1853, studied and served in several places in Kentucky (Union county, and then in Kelson county), and remained there until 1860, when he settled in Louisville, Kentucky, to serve the local Catholic community. Here he became not only a renowned pastor and an early ecumenist, but also a linguist and inventor. Bouchet was Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Louisville from 1871 until his death in 1903, and rector of the Catholic Cathedral of the Assumption.

Father Michael Bouchet was a small, lively man, with an inventive turn of mind, devising automatic snakes to frighten his acolytes, and a folding bed (1860) and fire escape for his own use. He devised also a refracting telescope, which is preserved and still functional. He also invented a candlestick in which the candle is raised automatically as it turns away at the top.

Bouchet had considerable responsibility for the financial affairs of his diocese and, according to his biographer, as early as the 1860s he devised an adding machine to assist in keeping these accounts. Of these devices, Bouchet patented only later versions of the adding machine, taking out the above-mentioned patents №251823 and №314561.

Bouchet was also a science fiction writer (he wrote a story about a trip to the Moon).

Michael Bouchet died on Easter morning, 12 April 1903, stricken with apoplexy while on his knees at prayer at night. His obituary noted, “Never was there a more singular, a more eccentric, a more contrarily gifted man who used his gifts and his winning personality so little to his own purposes… He was at once both sage and child.”

The first English stepped drum machine (it was a Thomas de Colmar-type arithmometer) was devised around 1880 by Samuel Tate (1840-1917), an iron worker and mechanical engineer from Sedgley, Staffordshire. In 1879 the Prudential Assurance Company challenged English makers to produce a more reliable machine than that of Thomas, announcing a premium of £300 in addition to the full price of 20 perfect English-made machines. The engineer Samuel Tate of Clerkenwell Close in Middlesex County also set out to make a simpler, faster, sturdier, and more accurate arithmometer. Tate left a Provisional Specification of his device at the British Patent Office on 29 March 1881, then made some improvements in the construction and provided complete specification (see Specification Nr. 65, 1 January 1884).

In 1883 the brothers Charles and Edwin James Layton (1850-1929), booksellers and authors of insurance books, presented the first arithmometer as the agents of Tate. Later they exhibited it at the International Inventions Exhibition held in London in 1885, and soon afterward acquired the patents, arranging a manufacturing workshop on Farrington Road in London. Layton brothers mainly occupied themselves with printing actuary tables and insurance-related items, but were really “Jacks-of-all-trade”, because they invented the printed and embossed greeting card in the 1860s, and obviously they thought that with their connections in the insurance industry, it was a good idea to have a calculating machine on offer. It turns out they were right.

Tate’s patent helped immensely, however, in the early 1900s, Charles Layton patented improvements to the calculating machine under his own name (patent GB190327364), namely a direction switch on the righthand side of the machine, which facilitated shortened multiplication without having to reach over to the direction switch on the left side of the top plate, and “Tate’s arithmometer” changes to “Tate’s improved arithmometer”. Later two other patents were granted (GB190908984 and GB190912032), the machine got an input control register below the setting sliders, and was named “Layton’s improved arithmometer”.

Tate-Layton’s machines are generally considered to be the heaviest duty and best made of all of the late 19th-century arithmometers. They were primarily manufactured for use by the insurance industry. Production of the device continued for more than 30 years until 1914. It seems some 1500 copies were sold, quite an achievement for a machine as expensive as this one (its price was Fifty Guineas in 1889, a large sum for the time)!

The machine of Tate is very similar to the machine of Colmar (one of Colmar’s patents is mentioned in its specification), with overall dimensions: 16.5 cm x 63.5 cm x 19 cm, and was manufactured by brass and wood (beautiful mahogany box with brass corner straps and carrying handles), with removable handle. The device is one of the most solid arithmometers ever built, the sheer size and weight of all the elements of the construction are impressive.

The machine of Tate has a brass top and metal mechanism and fits into a mahogany case. Six (or more, e.g. eight, as can be seen on the nearby image machine) levers are used to set digits, with a stepped drum below each lever. The plate that covers the drums and the top of the machine has slits in it to allow these and other parts to move. The edges of the slits next to the digit levers are numbered from 0 to 9 to indicate the digit entered. An ADD MULT / SUB DIV lever is left of the digit levers, but the machine has no windows to show the number set up. The crank on the right side operates the machine.

Behind the levers moves a carriage with a row of nine windows for the revolution register and a row of 12 (or more) windows for the result register. The discs in the revolution register have digits from 1 to 8 in red and from 0 to 9 in black. The discs of the result register have only the digits from 0 to 9. Rotating the crank on the right side of the carriage zeroes these registers. A handle for lifting the carriage is on its left. Three brass decimal markers fit in holes between the levers and windows. Thumbscrews in the revolution and result registers can be used to set numbers. Handles at both ends of the case assist in lifting.

On 23 April 1873, Ferdinand (also spelled as Friedrich or Franz) Hebentanz, from Budapest, obtained a privileg (patent) in Austria-Hungary for several adding machines. In fact, in the patent are described three different devices: keyboard adding machine without engine, keyboard adding machine with engine (spring motor), and pointer (pen-setting) adding machine or totaliser. In October of the same year, one of adding machines of Hebentanz was presented and received an award at Weltausstellung 1873 Wien (World Exposition 1873 in Vienna).

The second machine, also known as Bieringer und Hebentanz Tastertur Aditions Maschiene is a single-digit keyboard adding machine (i.e. having the capacity for adding but one digital column at a time) with a clock mechanism (spiral spring) drive. It seems several devices had been manufactured and one of them managed to survive our time (see the lower images). There is also an example of Hebentanz keyboard adder at the collection of Arithmeum Museum, Bonn, which created a very good animation for the device.

When a key of the device is pressed down, the spring power is released and can have an effect on the wheels of the result mechanism—longer or shorter, depending on the digit that has been entered. The mechanism is well-designed and operating the keyboard is very comfortable and smooth. Winding up the spiral spring once, using the mounted lever with a circular handle on the left (see the nearby image, as in the lower images this lever is mounted on the lid of the wooden box), makes calculating possible for an astonishingly long period of time, so that this additional step does hardly count, compared to the use of other single column key adding machines.

We don’t know who was the inventor of this machine. He would be Ferdinand (Nandor) Hebentanz (born 1848, died 19 August 1914), who at the end of the 19th century worked as Rechnungsführer (chief accountant) of Budapest Sparkassa (Savings Bank). Nandor Hebentanz definitely needed such a machine for his daily work as a young accountant in the early 1870s.

On 18 February 1867, François Marie Auguste Barre, a Parisian merchant, got a 15-year patent for Machine à compter (calculating machine, see the French patent N° 75026). In the same year, the device was presented during the Exposition Universelle (International Exposition, the second world’s fair was held in Paris, from 1 April to 3 November 1867).

The calculating machine of Barre was a simple, keyboard-operated counter, which can be used to add a single digit number by pressing on keys. In fact, due to its limited action, the appliance has only educational value, and cannot be used as a real calculating machine. The device was later described in the book Enciclopedia delle Arti e Industrie, volume 5, Macchine da Calcolare from Giuseppe Pastore (Torino, Italy, 1885).

Let’s examine the operation of the machine, using a drawing from the abovementioned book (see the image below).

This device consists of a nine-key keyboard A, carried by two levers C, which can rotate up to the same rotation axis. The nine keys are inscribed respectively with the numbers 1, 2, 3, … 9. They extend below with small parallelepiped rods of different lengths, arranged so that when the operator presses one of the keys with his finger, the keyboard A goes down, and the key the operator touch takes a position such as to come to meet the lower floor D; once the key is released, keyboard A returns to its initial position by virtue of a counterweight.

The rotation axis of the two levers C carries a drum, on which the next ones are marked at equal distances whole numbers 0, 1, 2, 3,… up to a certain number (depending on the size of the appliance). This drum is fitted with a crown toothed on which a pawl acts, by means of which the descent of keyboard A produces the rotation of the drum, while during the ascent there is no communication of movement between the levers C and the drum itself.

The length of the various keys is such that the corresponding rotation of the keyboard, and therefore of the drum, is proportional to the number marked on the key itself; so that, if the drum has the digit 0 at the index when the operator presses, for example, key 7, the number 7 of the drum is brought to the index. If later the operator pushes a second key, e.g. 9, the drum advances another 9 digits and the index marks the sum 7 + 9 = 16; so you can keep adding more numbers until the maximum straight number is exceeded on the drum.

There is a panel N, arranged in the base M of the appliance, consisting of 10 numbered slots, which can be slid by hand into special grooves. Using this panel, the operator can keep track of a total or any other number that needs to be remembered.

In the early 1880s the inventor Joseph Edmondson from Halifax, Yorks, England, devised an interesting circular calculating machine, based on the stepped-drum mechanism of Leibniz, which he patented in 1883 in Great Britain (patent No. 188316, from 1 January 1883) and in France (patent No. 158544, 14 Nov 1883). The machine was manufactured for some time by the company Joseph, Blakey, Emmott & Company, Ltd., of Square Road, Halifax, a producer of electrical equipment and telephones, but it is unknown how many devices were made. Later the business moved to Norwich.

The machine was initially introduced in a lecture to the Physical Society of London on 28 March 1885, then was presented to the International Inventions Exhibition (a world’s fair held in South Kensington from May 1885). In the same 1885, the machine was described in many sources, like Enciclopedia delle Arti e Industrie, volume 5, Macchine da Calcolare from Giuseppe Pastore (Torino, Italy, 1885), Scientific American magazine, Engineering magazine, and others.

In fact, Edmondson returned to the circular stepped-drums mechanism of the machine of Philipp Matthäus Hahn, although the construction of Edmondson is quite different. The machine was essentially a 20-digit arithmometer with a circular carriage (the slides being arranged radially around it) instead of the straight sliding carriage.

The machine is quite solid brass, steel, wood, and ceramic device, with dimensions 50,3 x 42,3 x 15,0 cm and a weight of some 17 kg (including the wooden case).

Eight number slides are placed radial on the outer fixed portion of the machine. The hinged slide of the straight type of machine (e.g. machine of Thomas de Colmar) is replaced by a circular plate, carrying 20 figure discs, each of which—depending on its position relative to the number slides and driving handle, respectively—can serve either for recording the result in multiplication, or for setting the figures of the multiplier. Stepping is performed by lifting this plate, rotating it through one-twentieth of a revolution, and lowering it again. To multiply, the figures of the multiplier are set on the middle plate, and those of the multiplicand are on the slides. The driving handle is then turned to the right and the plate is stepped clockwise until all the digits of the multiplier have been brought to zero. The product then appears in the apertures on the middle plate.

The machine is provided with a zero-setting mechanism with which some, or all of the windows may be set to zero.

The machine was shipped with a Quick Start Guide (Nota Bene) on the lid:
NOTA BENE.
By sliding the Lid of the box to the right, the hinges will separate, and the lid may be laid aside.
A Pamphlet containing full instructions accompanies each Machine, and should be carefully studied; but the following points are of special importance:-
The Driving Handle, which should be held between the thumb and two fore-fingers, must always be turned to the right, thus:-
Turning to the left may strain or break the machine.
The Number Slides, the Index Slides, and the Regulator Handle should only be moved when the Driving Handle is in its lowest position, i.e., opposite the stud.
The Regulator Handle should always be pushed home to the extreme right or the extreme left.
The Number Slides and Index Slides have Springs underneath, which drop into notches when the slides are in the right positions. The click of the Spring should be observed when setting a Slide.
If the Machine meets with a stop in its working, it should not be forced. The cause will probably be found in the neglect of one or more of the above directions.

Edmondson’s calculating machine attracted enough notice to be favorably mentioned in the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, almost thirty years after its introduction.

The description of the calculating machine of Edmondson in Scientific American magazine

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IMPROVED CALCULATING MACHINE.
An ingenious calculating machine is to be seen in the Inventions Exhibition, London, at the stand of its inventor, Mr. Joseph Edmondson, of Halifax, Yorks. Fig. 1 is a perspective view and Fig. 2 a plan of the apparatus as presented to the operator when seated in a position for working it. The principle of this machine is very simple. Beneath each number slide are two radial axes, one above the other. The lower one makes one revolution for each revolution of the motive handle, and has upon it a cylinder. That half of the cylinder which is farthest from the center of the machine is devoted to reckoning, and the other half to stopping and locking the axis above it, until the moment when the reckoning half, or reckoner, begins to operate. The reckoner is again divided into ten sections, on which there are respectively 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 teeth, and a considerable blank space; the section with nine teeth being the farthest from the center of the machine. The eight teeth of the next section are a prolongation of an equal number of the teeth of the preceding; and so on for each section; so that to the eye the reckoner presents a series of successively decreasing teeth, and from its stepped appearance it may be termed a stepped reckoner. The stopping or locking half of the cylinder is also stepped to correspond with the stepped reckoner. On the upper axis is a tube, free to slide longitudinally, and having a key fitting into a groove in the axis. The tube carries at its outer end a pinion of ten teeth gearing with the stepped reckoner, and at its other end a star wheel of ten rays fitting the stepped stop. A fork projecting below the number slide fits into a groove round the tube, so that the motion of the number slide is communicated to the tube, whose pinion is thus placed in position to gear with that section of the reckoner the teeth of which correspond in number with the figure in front of the curved rule. The pinion and star wheel are at such a distance apart that the latter is always upon the section of the stepped stop corresponding to the section of the reckoner with which the former is placed to gear.

On the lower axis, and nearer to the center of the machine, is a piece movable longitudinally, but carried round with the axis by a pin fitting into a hole at the end of the stepped stop. It is composed of the secondary carrying tooth and its corresponding stop, there being an incline on the inner edge of the latter, the use of which will be presently explained. Just above this movable piece there are, fixed on the upper axis, a second pinion of 10 teeth and a star wheel. The pinion is so set that when the piece below it is close up to the stepped stop, the secondary carrying tooth passes it by: but when the piece is moved inward, this carrying tooth gears with the pinion, and, when revolving, moves it one tooth forward. As soon as this has taken place, the incline comes in contact with a pin in the frame of the machine, which pushes the piece into its former position. Under the disks on the circle, the before mentioned upper axis carries two reversed bevel wheels of 10 teeth each, on a tube free to move longitudinally, but carried round by a key fitted into a groove on the axis. These wheels are moved longitudinally by the regulator, as may be seen by taking off the circle. Between them (and in gear with one or other of them, according to the position of the regulator) is a similar bevel wheel on the spindle of the corresponding number disk, and above the wheel is the primary carrying tooth. As the pinions and the bevel wheels have each ten teeth, and the number disk has ten figures, every tooth which the pinions are moved counts one, either forward or backward on the disk. When the figure in the aperture on the disk passes from 9 to 0 in addition, or from 0 to 9 in subtraction, the primary carrying tooth passes the wedge-shaped end of the upper arm of the carrying lever, which it pushes back. This carrying lever moves on a perpendicular axis. Its lower arm clutches a pin in the shaft of a fork under and parallels with the lower axis beneath the next higher number slide. This fork fits into a groove around the movable piece of the secondary carrying tooth, which it shoots inward into position for adding or carrying 1 as above described.

Each lower axis is timed to operate on the pinions above it, at least one tooth later than its neighbor to the right, to allow time for the latter to shoot the carrying tooth. This is not the case, however, with the axes under the lowest number slide but one, and the index slides, B and C, which are all timed to act simultaneously with the lowest number slide. It will be seen that each revolution of the motive-handle, and consequently of the reckoners, causes the latter to move the pinions above them as many teeth as there are on the sections of the reckoners, over which the pinions are respectively set by the number slides. This motion of the pinions is communicated to the number disks, and therefore adds or subtracts accordingly.

This machine, we understand, will work the four fundamental rules of arithmetic with absolute correctness. In the multiplication and division of large numbers, as well as in the combined operations of multiplying and adding, or of multiplying and subtracting, it effects a great saving of time and brain power. Any number under a hundred millions can be multiplied by any number under a million millions. The result when the highest numbers within these limits are employed is a product of twenty figures, the time taken (after the figures are set on to the machine) being two and a quarter seconds, on the average, for each figure of the multiplier. It therefore forms an invaluable adjunct to offices and individuals having extensive calculations to deal with.

Biography of Joseph Edmondson

Almost nothing is known about the inventor of this interesting machine. In the 1881 Census data, there is one Joseph Edmondson, born 1831 in Warrington, Lancashire, who lived together with his wife Ellen (born 1841 in Bradford, Yorkshire) and three servants, in Halifax, Yorkshire (West Riding). His occupation is specified as Manager Of Works For Printing (Worsted Textile). Besides the above-mentioned patents for the calculating machine, Joseph Edmondson was a holder of three other patents from 1863, 1864, and 1865, for Improvements in looms for weaving. He was probably the author of the book Universal tables of textile structure, for the use of manufacturers in every branch of textile trade, published several times from the early 1860s until the 1880s.

In the middle of the 1840s the Basque mathematician, surveyor, and inventor Policarpo de Balzola (1813-1879), from Irún (Guipúzcoa), Spain, invented his Arithmetical Machine, called Teclado Aritmético (Arithmetic Keyboard)—a keyboard-driven calculating machine that had the appearance of a piano (some ten years before the similar Piano machine of Thomas de Colmar).

In 1846 Balzola described his machine in a manuscript (see the manuscript of Teclado Aritmético) and ordered the wooden part of the prototype to be made in the piano factory of Apezteguía y Kneipe and the iron part in the blacksmith workshop of Juan José de Maritorena in Irun. The device had a wooden case with dimensions 91 x 61 cm, and 2 x 9 keys, and was described in several publications in early 1847. In February 1847 it was presented to Spanish Royal Court in Madrid and was highly appreciated by Queen Isabel II. In June the machine was presented to the Academia de Ciencias (Spanish Academy of Sciences) and described in several publications, for example in the 1 April 1847, issue of the newspaper Eco de Comercio.

The Arithmetical Machine of Balzola is a kind of piano with keys grouped in sections (groups) of nine. Each key represents a digit in the decimal system, so in the section (units section), the first key represents one, the second represents two, and so on up to nine: the first key of the second section (tens section) represents ten, the second represents twenty, and so on. Above each group of keys, there are small windows in which the operator can see the corresponding numbers, engraved on a resulting wheel.

The white keys are marked 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, while the black keys are marked 2, 4, 6, and 8. There is no key for zero.

Pressing a key puts in motion a gear wheel, thus entering the corresponding digit into the machine. There is a tens carry mechanism, to pass the motion to the next gear wheel during the transition from 9 to 0.

Balzola intended to modify the initial prototype, in order to be suitable for multiplication and division also, and to add an additional mechanism for the calculation of fractional numbers, but the modified prototype was destroyed in a fire. The inventor was unable to recreate the machine, because of his limited financial resources.

Biography of Policarpo de Balzola

Policarpo de Balzola Iparraguirre was born on 26 January, 1813, in Irún, Basque Country, Spain. He was the third child of Miguel de Balzola Garamendi Emparanza y Arribalzagogesacoa from Guernica, a parish organist and choirmaster, and María Josefa Iparraguirre from Irún, a cloth merchant. Policarpo had an elder sister, Antonia, and a brother, Felipe.

Miguel de Balzola Garamendi was born in Guernica about 1760. His father, Miguel de Balzola Emparanza (a great-grandfather of the famous Spanish Basque composer Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga), was an organist and composer at the Church of Santa Maria de Guernica. Miguel Jr. succeeded in his father’s occupation and in January 1780, he accepted the position of teaching organist and choirmaster in the Church of Santa Maria del Juncal in Irun. He worked as an organist in Irun for 37 years, leaving in June 1817, stricken with insult and paralysis. Miguel de Balzola died on 23 April, 1823.

Policarpo de Balzola ended elementary school in his hometown, where he was fond of arithmetic and geometry. After the death of his father in 1823, the family led a poor life, so he had to work for his first revenues, in order to pay for some lessons that gave him a military engineer, who came to repair the fortifications of Irun, and presented to the boy some geometry, trigonometry, and drawing for a few months. Policarpo also took some lessons from the mayor of the town, Justo Urrutia.

In the early 1830s, the young Policarpo went to Madrid to take charge of a model farm established in the vicinity of the Court, under the protection of the State and remained there until he fell ill with pneumonia and was forced to abandon a climate that suited him so badly and to return to Irun in 1835.

After taking part in the First Carlist War (1833–1839), in which he actively participated as a member of the National Militia, in 1838 Policarpo de Balzola married Gabriela Echeverría y Ugalde from Irun, and they had four children: Isabel, Hermógenes, Valeriano, and Soledad.

In 1837 Balzola succeeded to get the position of a escribano (a notary) in Burgos, then he was appointed Secretario del Ayuntamiento de Irún (secretary of the City of Irun), in 1839 he was appointed escribano de la villa (notary of the town), and worked (in various positions) for his hometown until 1868. From 1847 until 1850 he hold the position of perito agrimensor (expert surveyor) in Tolosa, a job that allowed him to draw plans for small and large construction projects, e.g. the original layout of the Bidasoa railway. In the early 1860s (1861-65) Balzola designed Paseo de Colón (the Main Street) of Irun.

In the 1840s, besides his calculating machine, Balzola invented a mechanical perpetual calendar (el calendario perpetuo mecanico) and got a patent (privilege) to sell it for 15 years, a measuring device for surfaces, and a scoring mechanism.

In 1849, Policarpo de Balzola went on to become a key figure in the establishment of the metric system in the Spain and Basque Country. In 1853 he published a book (Aritmética con la explicación del Sistema métrico escrita por encargo de la Diputación de la M. N. y M. L. provincia de Guipúzcoa por Policarpo de Balzola) to spread the use of metric units. Besides this book, Balzola is the author of several other books on metric systems, universal harmony, calendars, and others, like “Notes on the theory of the Harmony of the Universe”, “Shortcut Method for the resolution of the issues interest and medium-term with application of the mode of settling accounts currents with interest by means of the table of mechanical interests and how to resolve by means of the same table a number of other issues”, “Sketch on the theory of numbering”, and others.

Policarpo de Balzola was a politically controversial but affable and funny character with a sense of humor, a good dancer, and his capacity for work and his passion for learning, always in favor of their community, still appear admirable. For his merits, in 1859 Balzola was distinguished as Caballero de la Real and received the Orden Española de Carlos III, and in 1865 he was granted the order of Isabel la Católica. He was also a member correspondent of the Spanish Institute.

At the beginning of the Third Carlist War (1872–1876), Balzola was in charge of collecting indirect taxes in the province. He took advantage of this responsibility to introduce the use of the decimal metric system in the provincial Treasury. When Irún was besieged and bombarded by the Carlists in 1873, Balzola collaborated in its defense.

Policarpo de Balzola died on 1 February 1879, at his home on the main street of Irun.

In the middle of the 19^th century, Samuel S. Young of Eaton, Ohio, USA, patented three simple (and quite similar) calculating devices. The first patent (US patent No. 6602 from 24 July 1849) was for а machine for adding figures. The second patent was for a machine for calculation of interest (US pat. No. 8329 from 2 Sep. 1851). The third patent (US pat. No. 21921 from 26 Oct. 1858) was for an arithmetical proof rule.

It seems an adding device, based on the first patent of Young (see the drawing of US patent No. 6602 below), was manufactured and became rather popular in the 1850s in the USA. According to (most probably exaggerated) advertising, more than 30,000 examples of this device had been sold by 1857. The patent model survived to the present and it is kept in the National Museum of American History, Washington (see the upper image).

Let’s see an excerpt of a sales letter from a certain W. M. Richardson, a sales agent:
I am agent for the sale of Young’s Patent Adding Tablet a very ingenious machine for adding up columns of figures, to any amount with accuracy and rapidity, without mental labour, they are very generally used by Bankers, Merchants, Storekeepers & Accountants, as evidence of their popularity, over thirty thousand have been sold already. It will be sent by mail on receipt of One dollar, or one dozen for Nine Dollars.

It was a wooden device, with overall measurements: 7 cm x 9.8 cm x 15.6 cm.

The simple adder with a frame holds seven strips of wood. Each strip has 19 holes on it. The ten right holes are numbered from 0 to 9. The nine remaining holes are unnumbered, but the wood is colored green. To the sides of each strip, the numbers 1 to 9 are written on the frame. The left part of the strip is covered by an upper piece on the frame.

The second calculating instrument of Young (Rule for Calculating Interest) is similar to the first, a wood and paper device with overall measurements of 0.8 cm x 35.4 cm x 4.1 cm (see the image below).

This patent model has a rectangular wooden frame with five grooves, each of which holds a bar (made from a different kind of wood) that slides crosswise. Two flat wooden pieces cover much of the bars on the left side, with a gap between them. Each bar has a set of 12 evenly spaced holes that are numbered from 11 down to 1 (the “0” holes are not numbered). Each bar also is indented at the top to hold a slip of paper that slides under the top of the machine. There are 11 further, unnumbered, holes to the right of each slip of paper. Setting up a number on the rods (to represent an amount of money or a length of time) reveals a number on the paper slips that represents an amount of tax or interest.

The third patent (pat. №21921 from 1858) was for an arithmetical proof-rule, a device, similar to the first and second calculating instruments of Young.

Simple calculating devices, similar to the above described, remained popular till the middle of the 20^th century, for example, later devices of Thomas Fowler and Clarence Locke.

Biography of Samuel Young

Samuel S. Young, the son of Alexander and Sarah Young, was born on 28 March 1809, in Butler County, Ohio. The US Census for 1850 indicates that S. S. Young of Eaton, Ohio, 40 years old that year, was living with his wife (Young married on 13 February 1834, to Eliza Jane Hardy) and two children. His occupation was given as “gardener.” Apparently by 1860 Young had moved to the nearby town of Washington and he is listed in the Census as a “horticulturalist” by occupation. In 1864 and 1865 Young was working in the real estate and rental business in Cincinnati, Ohio, along with one of Red Lion’s and Warren County’s most distinguished and prosperous citizens, merchant, Postmaster, and match manufacturer—William H. Ballard (1817-1892).

Samuel S. Young died on 8 January 1885 (aged 75), in Bonnieville, Hart County, Kentucky, and was buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati.