Dorr Felt
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..Read More
William Burroughs
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..Read More
William Macnider
In September 1884, a certain William John Macnider of Greensborough, Georgia, applied for a patent for keyboard adding machine. The patent (US patent No. 322190) was granted on 14 July 1885 (the administrator of the patent was Quintin Macnider, as William Macnider died meanwhile on 6 March 1885, in Belleville,..Read More
Eduard Selling
In April 1886, Eduard Selling, a professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Würzburg, Germany, received a patent for a calculating machine with a very interesting construction. The driving force behind this invention was (as usual) the personal need for a better calculating tool. It’s known that since..Read More
Peter Lindholm
In November 1885 Peter T. Lindholm, a professor of mathematics, theology, and pedagogics, at Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, applied for, and on 15 June 1886 received a patent for a key-driven one-column adding machine (US patent №343770). In the same 1886 Lindholm received also a Canadian patent for five..Read More