An
Arithmometer or
Arithmomètre was a
mechanical calculatorA mechanical calculator is a device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Mechanical calculators are comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator....
that could add and subtract directly and could perform
long multiplicationsA multiplication algorithm is an algorithm to multiply two numbers. Depending on the size of the numbers, different algorithms are in use...
and divisions effectively by using a movable accumulator for the result. Patented in France by Thomas de Colmar in 1820 and manufactured from 1851 to 1915, it became the first commercially successful mechanical calculator. Its sturdy design gave it a strong reputation of reliability and accuracy and made it a key player in the move from to calculating machines that took place during the second half of the 19th century.
Its production debut of 1851 launched the mechanical calculator industry which ultimately built millions of machines well into the 1970s. For almost forty years, from 1851 to 1887, the Arithmometer was the only type of mechanical calculator in commercial production and it was sold all over the world. During the later part of that period two companies started manufacturing clones of the Arithmometer, they were: Burkhardt from Germany which started in 1878 and Layton from the UK which started in 1883. Eventually about twenty European companies built clones of the arithmometer until the beginning of WWII.
Searching for a Solution: 1820-1851
The Arithmometers of this period implemented a direct multiplication, where the multiplicand inscribed on the input sliders could be multiplied by a single digit multiplier by simply pulling on a ribbon (quickly replaced by a crank handle). It was a complicated design and very few machines were built. Additionally, no machines were built between 1822 and 1844.
It must be noted that this hiatus of 22 years coincides almost exactly with the period of time during which the British government financed the design of
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
's
difference engineA difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...
, which on paper was 10 times more sophisticated than the Arithmometer but couldn't be built with the technology of the time.
In 1844 Thomas reintroduced his machine at the
Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française in the newly created category of
Miscellaneous measuring tools, counters and calculating machines but only received an honorable mention.
He restarted the development of the machine in 1848. In 1850, as part of a marketing effort, Thomas built a few machines with exquisite boxes that he gave to the crown heads of Europe. He filed two patents and two patents of addition in between 1849 and 1851.
Creating an
The multiplier was removed, making the Arithmometer a simple adding machine, but thanks to its moving carriage used as an indexed accumulator, it still allowed for easy multiplication and division under operator control. It was introduced in the UK at the
The Great ExhibitionThe Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...
of 1851 and true industrial production started in 1851.
Each machine was given a serial number and user manuals were printed. At first, Thomas differentiated machines by capacity and therefore gave the same serial number to machines of different capacities. This was corrected in 1865 and each machine was given its own unique serial number starting with a serial number of 500.
The constant use of some of the machines exposed some minor design flaws like a weak carry mechanism, which was given an adequate fix in 1856, and an over rotation of the Leibniz cylinders when the crank handle is turned too fast, which was corrected by the addition of a
Maltese crossThe Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. The rotating drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel advancing it by one step...
. A patent covering all these innovations was filed in 1865.
Because of its reliability and accuracy, government offices, banks, observatories and businesses all over the world started using the Arithmometer in their day to day operations. Around 1872, for the first time in calculating machine history, the total number of machines manufactured passed the 1,000 mark. In 1880, twenty years before the competition, a mechanism to move the carriage automatically was patented and installed on some machines, but was not integrated into the production models.
The Golden Age: 1887-1915
Under the management of Louis Payen, and later his widow, many improvements were introduced, such as an incline mechanism, a removable top, cursors and result windows that were easier to read, and a faster re-zeroing mechanism.
Many clone makers appeared during that period, mostly in Germany and the United Kingdom. Eventually twenty independent companies manufactured clones of the arithmometer. All these companies were based in Europe but sold their machines worldwide.
Unfortunately the fundamental design stayed the same and, at the turn of the century, after 50 years at the top, the Arithmometer lost its supremacy in the mechanical calculator industry. While in 1890, the Arithmometer was still the most produced mechanical calculator in the world, ten years later, by 1900, four machines, the
ComptometerThe comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the USA by Dorr E. Felt in 1887.A key-driven calculator is extremely fast because each key adds or subtracts its value to the accumulator as soon as it is pressed and a skilled operator can enter all...
and Burroughs' adding machine in the USA,
Odhner's ArithmometerThe Odhner Arithmometer was a very successful pinwheel calculator invented in Russia in 1873 by W. T. Odhner, a Swedish immigrant. Its industrial production officially started in 1890 in Odhner's Saint Petersburg workshop...
in Russia, and Brunsviga in Germany had passed it in volume of machines manufactured.
Production of the Arithmometer stopped in 1915, during WWI.
Alphonse Darras, who had bought the business in 1915, was unable to restart its manufacturing after the war because of the many shortages and a lack of qualified workers.
Legacy
Because it was the first mass marketed and the first widely copied calculator, its design marks the starting point of the mechanical calculator industry, which eventually morphed into the electronic calculator industry and which, through the accidental design of the first microprocessor to be commercialized, the
Intel 4004The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor...
, for one of
BusicomBusicom was a Japanese company that owned the rights to the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970....
's calculator in 1971, lead to the first
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, the
AltairThe MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
in 1975.
Its user interface was used throughout during the 120 years that the mechanical calculator industry lasted. First with its clones and then with the Odhner Arithmometer and its clones, which was a redesign of the arithmometer with a
pinwheel systemA Pinwheel calculator was a class of mechanical calculator popular in the 19th and 20th century using, for its calculating engine, a set of wheels that had an adjustable number of teeth...
but with exactly the same user interface.
Over the years, the term Arithmometer or parts of it have been used on many different machines like Odhner's Arithmometer, the
ArithmaurelFirst patented in France by Timoleon Maurel, in 1842, the Arithmaurel was a mechanical calculator that had a very intuitive user interface, especially for multiplying and dividing numbers because the result was displayed as soon as the operands were entered. It received a gold medal at the French...
or the Compt
ometer, and on some portable pocket calculating machines of the 1940s. Burroughs corporation started as the
American Arithmometer Company in 1886. By the 1920s it had become a generic name for any machine based on its design with about twenty independent companies manufacturing Thomas' clones like Burkhardt, Layton, Saxonia, Gräber, Peerless, Mercedes-Euklid, XxX, Archimedes, etc.
History
Design
Thomas started to work on his machine while serving in the
French ArmyThe French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
where he had to do a great deal of calculations. He made use of principles from previous mechanical calculators like the
stepped reckonerThe Step Reckoner was a digital mechanical calculator invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz around 1672 and completed in 1694. The name comes from the translation of the German term for its operating mechanism; staffelwalze meaning 'stepped drum'...
of
LeibnizGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
and
Pascal's calculatorBlaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1642. He conceived it while trying to help his father who had been assigned the task of reorganizing the tax revenues of the French province of Haute-Normandie ; first called Arithmetic Machine, Pascal's Calculator and later Pascaline, it could...
. He patented it on November 18, 1820.
This machine implements a true multiplication where, by just pulling on a ribbon, the multiplicand entered on the input sliders is multiplied by a one digit multiplier number and it uses the
An
Arithmometer or
Arithmomètre was a
mechanical calculatorA mechanical calculator is a device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Mechanical calculators are comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator....
that could add and subtract directly and could perform
long multiplicationsA multiplication algorithm is an algorithm to multiply two numbers. Depending on the size of the numbers, different algorithms are in use...
and divisions effectively by using a movable accumulator for the result. Patented in France by Thomas de Colmar in 1820 and manufactured from 1851 to 1915, it became the first commercially successful mechanical calculator. Its sturdy design gave it a strong reputation of reliability and accuracy and made it a key player in the move from {{nowrap|
human computerThe term "computer", in use from the mid 17th century, meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available....
s}} to calculating machines that took place during the second half of the 19th century.
Its production debut of 1851 launched the mechanical calculator industry which ultimately built millions of machines well into the 1970s. For almost forty years, from 1851 to 1887, the Arithmometer was the only type of mechanical calculator in commercial production and it was sold all over the world. During the later part of that period two companies started manufacturing clones of the Arithmometer, they were: Burkhardt from Germany which started in 1878 and Layton from the UK which started in 1883. Eventually about twenty European companies built clones of the arithmometer until the beginning of WWII.
Searching for a Solution: 1820-1851
The Arithmometers of this period implemented a direct multiplication, where the multiplicand inscribed on the input sliders could be multiplied by a single digit multiplier by simply pulling on a ribbon (quickly replaced by a crank handle). It was a complicated design and very few machines were built. Additionally, no machines were built between 1822 and 1844.
It must be noted that this hiatus of 22 years coincides almost exactly with the period of time during which the British government financed the design of
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
's
difference engineA difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...
, which on paper was 10 times more sophisticated than the Arithmometer but couldn't be built with the technology of the time.
In 1844 Thomas reintroduced his machine at the
Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française in the newly created category of
Miscellaneous measuring tools, counters and calculating machines but only received an honorable mention.
He restarted the development of the machine in 1848. In 1850, as part of a marketing effort, Thomas built a few machines with exquisite boxes that he gave to the crown heads of Europe. He filed two patents and two patents of addition in between 1849 and 1851.
Creating an {{nowrap|Industry: 1851-1887}}
The multiplier was removed, making the Arithmometer a simple adding machine, but thanks to its moving carriage used as an indexed accumulator, it still allowed for easy multiplication and division under operator control. It was introduced in the UK at the
The Great ExhibitionThe Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...
of 1851 and true industrial production started in 1851.
Each machine was given a serial number and user manuals were printed. At first, Thomas differentiated machines by capacity and therefore gave the same serial number to machines of different capacities. This was corrected in 1865 and each machine was given its own unique serial number starting with a serial number of 500.
The constant use of some of the machines exposed some minor design flaws like a weak carry mechanism, which was given an adequate fix in 1856, and an over rotation of the Leibniz cylinders when the crank handle is turned too fast, which was corrected by the addition of a
Maltese crossThe Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. The rotating drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel advancing it by one step...
. A patent covering all these innovations was filed in 1865.
Because of its reliability and accuracy, government offices, banks, observatories and businesses all over the world started using the Arithmometer in their day to day operations. Around 1872, for the first time in calculating machine history, the total number of machines manufactured passed the 1,000 mark. In 1880, twenty years before the competition, a mechanism to move the carriage automatically was patented and installed on some machines, but was not integrated into the production models.
The Golden Age: 1887-1915
Under the management of Louis Payen, and later his widow, many improvements were introduced, such as an incline mechanism, a removable top, cursors and result windows that were easier to read, and a faster re-zeroing mechanism.
Many clone makers appeared during that period, mostly in Germany and the United Kingdom. Eventually twenty independent companies manufactured clones of the arithmometer. All these companies were based in Europe but sold their machines worldwide.
Unfortunately the fundamental design stayed the same and, at the turn of the century, after 50 years at the top, the Arithmometer lost its supremacy in the mechanical calculator industry. While in 1890, the Arithmometer was still the most produced mechanical calculator in the world, ten years later, by 1900, four machines, the
ComptometerThe comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the USA by Dorr E. Felt in 1887.A key-driven calculator is extremely fast because each key adds or subtracts its value to the accumulator as soon as it is pressed and a skilled operator can enter all...
and Burroughs' adding machine in the USA,
Odhner's ArithmometerThe Odhner Arithmometer was a very successful pinwheel calculator invented in Russia in 1873 by W. T. Odhner, a Swedish immigrant. Its industrial production officially started in 1890 in Odhner's Saint Petersburg workshop...
in Russia, and Brunsviga in Germany had passed it in volume of machines manufactured.
Production of the Arithmometer stopped in 1915, during WWI.
Alphonse Darras, who had bought the business in 1915, was unable to restart its manufacturing after the war because of the many shortages and a lack of qualified workers.
Legacy
Because it was the first mass marketed and the first widely copied calculator, its design marks the starting point of the mechanical calculator industry, which eventually morphed into the electronic calculator industry and which, through the accidental design of the first microprocessor to be commercialized, the
Intel 4004The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor...
, for one of
BusicomBusicom was a Japanese company that owned the rights to the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970....
's calculator in 1971, lead to the first
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, the
AltairThe MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
in 1975.
Its user interface was used throughout during the 120 years that the mechanical calculator industry lasted. First with its clones and then with the Odhner Arithmometer and its clones, which was a redesign of the arithmometer with a
pinwheel systemA Pinwheel calculator was a class of mechanical calculator popular in the 19th and 20th century using, for its calculating engine, a set of wheels that had an adjustable number of teeth...
but with exactly the same user interface.
Over the years, the term Arithmometer or parts of it have been used on many different machines like Odhner's Arithmometer, the
ArithmaurelFirst patented in France by Timoleon Maurel, in 1842, the Arithmaurel was a mechanical calculator that had a very intuitive user interface, especially for multiplying and dividing numbers because the result was displayed as soon as the operands were entered. It received a gold medal at the French...
or the Compt
ometer, and on some portable pocket calculating machines of the 1940s. Burroughs corporation started as the
American Arithmometer Company in 1886. By the 1920s it had become a generic name for any machine based on its design with about twenty independent companies manufacturing Thomas' clones like Burkhardt, Layton, Saxonia, Gräber, Peerless, Mercedes-Euklid, XxX, Archimedes, etc.
History
{{multiple image
| align = left
| direction = vertical
| width = 220
| footer =
| image1 = Platine Arithmometer 1822.png
| caption1 = The single digit multiplier is set on the left slider while the multiplicand is set on the three sliders on the right
| image2 = Mechanism Arithmometer 1822.png
| caption2 = The three Leibniz cylinders can be seen on the left and the pulling ribbon on the right
}}
Design
Thomas started to work on his machine while serving in the
French ArmyThe French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
where he had to do a great deal of calculations. He made use of principles from previous mechanical calculators like the
stepped reckonerThe Step Reckoner was a digital mechanical calculator invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz around 1672 and completed in 1694. The name comes from the translation of the German term for its operating mechanism; staffelwalze meaning 'stepped drum'...
of
LeibnizGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
and
Pascal's calculatorBlaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1642. He conceived it while trying to help his father who had been assigned the task of reorganizing the tax revenues of the French province of Haute-Normandie ; first called Arithmetic Machine, Pascal's Calculator and later Pascaline, it could...
. He patented it on November 18, 1820.
This machine implements a true multiplication where, by just pulling on a ribbon, the multiplicand entered on the input sliders is multiplied by a one digit multiplier number and it uses the
An
Arithmometer or
Arithmomètre was a
mechanical calculatorA mechanical calculator is a device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic. Mechanical calculators are comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator....
that could add and subtract directly and could perform
long multiplicationsA multiplication algorithm is an algorithm to multiply two numbers. Depending on the size of the numbers, different algorithms are in use...
and divisions effectively by using a movable accumulator for the result. Patented in France by Thomas de Colmar in 1820 and manufactured from 1851 to 1915, it became the first commercially successful mechanical calculator. Its sturdy design gave it a strong reputation of reliability and accuracy and made it a key player in the move from {{nowrap|
human computerThe term "computer", in use from the mid 17th century, meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available....
s}} to calculating machines that took place during the second half of the 19th century.
Its production debut of 1851 launched the mechanical calculator industry which ultimately built millions of machines well into the 1970s. For almost forty years, from 1851 to 1887, the Arithmometer was the only type of mechanical calculator in commercial production and it was sold all over the world. During the later part of that period two companies started manufacturing clones of the Arithmometer, they were: Burkhardt from Germany which started in 1878 and Layton from the UK which started in 1883. Eventually about twenty European companies built clones of the arithmometer until the beginning of WWII.
Searching for a Solution: 1820-1851
The Arithmometers of this period implemented a direct multiplication, where the multiplicand inscribed on the input sliders could be multiplied by a single digit multiplier by simply pulling on a ribbon (quickly replaced by a crank handle). It was a complicated design and very few machines were built. Additionally, no machines were built between 1822 and 1844.
It must be noted that this hiatus of 22 years coincides almost exactly with the period of time during which the British government financed the design of
Charles BabbageCharles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
's
difference engineA difference engine is an automatic, mechanical calculator designed to tabulate polynomial functions. Both logarithmic and trigonometric functions can be approximated by polynomials, so a difference engine can compute many useful sets of numbers.-History:...
, which on paper was 10 times more sophisticated than the Arithmometer but couldn't be built with the technology of the time.
In 1844 Thomas reintroduced his machine at the
Exposition des Produits de l'Industrie Française in the newly created category of
Miscellaneous measuring tools, counters and calculating machines but only received an honorable mention.
He restarted the development of the machine in 1848. In 1850, as part of a marketing effort, Thomas built a few machines with exquisite boxes that he gave to the crown heads of Europe. He filed two patents and two patents of addition in between 1849 and 1851.
Creating an {{nowrap|Industry: 1851-1887}}
The multiplier was removed, making the Arithmometer a simple adding machine, but thanks to its moving carriage used as an indexed accumulator, it still allowed for easy multiplication and division under operator control. It was introduced in the UK at the
The Great ExhibitionThe Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October...
of 1851 and true industrial production started in 1851.
Each machine was given a serial number and user manuals were printed. At first, Thomas differentiated machines by capacity and therefore gave the same serial number to machines of different capacities. This was corrected in 1865 and each machine was given its own unique serial number starting with a serial number of 500.
The constant use of some of the machines exposed some minor design flaws like a weak carry mechanism, which was given an adequate fix in 1856, and an over rotation of the Leibniz cylinders when the crank handle is turned too fast, which was corrected by the addition of a
Maltese crossThe Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a gear mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. The rotating drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel advancing it by one step...
. A patent covering all these innovations was filed in 1865.
Because of its reliability and accuracy, government offices, banks, observatories and businesses all over the world started using the Arithmometer in their day to day operations. Around 1872, for the first time in calculating machine history, the total number of machines manufactured passed the 1,000 mark. In 1880, twenty years before the competition, a mechanism to move the carriage automatically was patented and installed on some machines, but was not integrated into the production models.
The Golden Age: 1887-1915
Under the management of Louis Payen, and later his widow, many improvements were introduced, such as an incline mechanism, a removable top, cursors and result windows that were easier to read, and a faster re-zeroing mechanism.
Many clone makers appeared during that period, mostly in Germany and the United Kingdom. Eventually twenty independent companies manufactured clones of the arithmometer. All these companies were based in Europe but sold their machines worldwide.
Unfortunately the fundamental design stayed the same and, at the turn of the century, after 50 years at the top, the Arithmometer lost its supremacy in the mechanical calculator industry. While in 1890, the Arithmometer was still the most produced mechanical calculator in the world, ten years later, by 1900, four machines, the
ComptometerThe comptometer was the first commercially successful key-driven mechanical calculator, patented in the USA by Dorr E. Felt in 1887.A key-driven calculator is extremely fast because each key adds or subtracts its value to the accumulator as soon as it is pressed and a skilled operator can enter all...
and Burroughs' adding machine in the USA,
Odhner's ArithmometerThe Odhner Arithmometer was a very successful pinwheel calculator invented in Russia in 1873 by W. T. Odhner, a Swedish immigrant. Its industrial production officially started in 1890 in Odhner's Saint Petersburg workshop...
in Russia, and Brunsviga in Germany had passed it in volume of machines manufactured.
Production of the Arithmometer stopped in 1915, during WWI.
Alphonse Darras, who had bought the business in 1915, was unable to restart its manufacturing after the war because of the many shortages and a lack of qualified workers.
Legacy
Because it was the first mass marketed and the first widely copied calculator, its design marks the starting point of the mechanical calculator industry, which eventually morphed into the electronic calculator industry and which, through the accidental design of the first microprocessor to be commercialized, the
Intel 4004The Intel 4004 was a 4-bit central processing unit released by Intel Corporation in 1971. It was the first complete CPU on one chip, and also the first commercially available microprocessor...
, for one of
BusicomBusicom was a Japanese company that owned the rights to the first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, which they created in partnership with Intel in 1970....
's calculator in 1971, lead to the first
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, the
AltairThe MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
in 1975.
Its user interface was used throughout during the 120 years that the mechanical calculator industry lasted. First with its clones and then with the Odhner Arithmometer and its clones, which was a redesign of the arithmometer with a
pinwheel systemA Pinwheel calculator was a class of mechanical calculator popular in the 19th and 20th century using, for its calculating engine, a set of wheels that had an adjustable number of teeth...
but with exactly the same user interface.
Over the years, the term Arithmometer or parts of it have been used on many different machines like Odhner's Arithmometer, the
ArithmaurelFirst patented in France by Timoleon Maurel, in 1842, the Arithmaurel was a mechanical calculator that had a very intuitive user interface, especially for multiplying and dividing numbers because the result was displayed as soon as the operands were entered. It received a gold medal at the French...
or the Compt
ometer, and on some portable pocket calculating machines of the 1940s. Burroughs corporation started as the
American Arithmometer Company in 1886. By the 1920s it had become a generic name for any machine based on its design with about twenty independent companies manufacturing Thomas' clones like Burkhardt, Layton, Saxonia, Gräber, Peerless, Mercedes-Euklid, XxX, Archimedes, etc.
History
{{multiple image
| align = left
| direction = vertical
| width = 220
| footer =
| image1 = Platine Arithmometer 1822.png
| caption1 = The single digit multiplier is set on the left slider while the multiplicand is set on the three sliders on the right
| image2 = Mechanism Arithmometer 1822.png
| caption2 = The three Leibniz cylinders can be seen on the left and the pulling ribbon on the right
}}
Design
Thomas started to work on his machine while serving in the
French ArmyThe French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
where he had to do a great deal of calculations. He made use of principles from previous mechanical calculators like the
stepped reckonerThe Step Reckoner was a digital mechanical calculator invented by German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz around 1672 and completed in 1694. The name comes from the translation of the German term for its operating mechanism; staffelwalze meaning 'stepped drum'...
of
LeibnizGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was a German philosopher and mathematician. He wrote in different languages, primarily in Latin , French and German ....
and
Pascal's calculatorBlaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1642. He conceived it while trying to help his father who had been assigned the task of reorganizing the tax revenues of the French province of Haute-Normandie ; first called Arithmetic Machine, Pascal's Calculator and later Pascaline, it could...
. He patented it on November 18, 1820.
This machine implements a true multiplication where, by just pulling on a ribbon, the multiplicand entered on the input sliders is multiplied by a one digit multiplier number and it uses the {{nowrap method for subtracting. Both of these features will be dropped in later designs.
First Machine
The first machine was built by Devrine, a Parisian clockmaker, it took him a year to build it. But, in order to make it work, he had to modify the patented design quite substantially. The
Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale was given this machine for review and it issued a very positive report on December 26, 1821. The only known prototype of this time is the {{nowrap|
1822 machine}} on display at the
Smithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
Production
Manufacturing started in 1851 and ended around 1915. There were about {{formatnum:5000}} machines built during this sixty year period; 40% of the production was sold in France and the rest was exported.
The manufacturing was managed by:
- Thomas de Colmar himself until his death in 1870, then by his son Thomas de Bojano until 1881 and by his grand-son Mr. de Rancy until 1887. Misters Devrine (1820), Piolaine (1848), Hoart (1850) and Louis Payen (around 1875) were the engineers responsible for building the machines. All the machines manufactured during this time have the logo {{nowrap|Thomas de Colmar}}.
- Louis Payen who bought the business in 1887 until his death in 1902; All these machines have the logo {{nowrap|L. Payen}}.
- Veuve L. Payen who took over the business at her husband's death and sold it in 1915 with the logos {{nowrap|L. Payen}}, {{nowrap|Veuve L. Payen}} and VLP. Alphonse Darras built most of these machines.
- Alphonse Darras who bought the business in 1915 and manufactured the last machines. He added a logo made of the letters A and D interlaced and went back to the {{nowrap|L. Payen}} logo.
During the early part of manufacturing, Thomas differentiated machines by capacity and therefore gave the same serial number to machines of different capacities. He corrected this in 1865, giving every machine its own unique serial number starting with a serial number of 500. This is why there isn't any machine with a serial number in between 200 and 500.
From 1865 to 1907 the serial numbers were consecutive (from 500 to 4000) then, after patenting a rapid zeroing mechanism in 1907, Veuve L. Payen started a new numbering scheme at 500 (the number of arithmometers she had built with the old scheme) and was at serial number 1700 when she sold the business to Alphonse Darras in 1915. Alphonse Darras went back to the old serial numbers (while approximatively adding the number of machines made by Veuve L. Payen) et restarted at 5500.
Ease of use and Speed
An article published in January 1857 in
The Gentleman's MagazineThe Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...
best describes it:
{{quote|M. Thomas's arithmometer may be used without the least trouble or possibility of error, not only for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, but also for much more complex operations, such as the extraction of the square root, involution, the resolution of triangles, etc...
A multiplication of eight figures by eight others is made in eighteen seconds; a division of sixteen figures by eight figures, in twenty four seconds; and in one minute and a quarter one can extract the square root of sixteen figures, and also prove the accuracy of the calculation...
The working of this instrument is, however, most simple. To raise or lower a nut-screw, to turn a winch a few times, and, by means of a button, to slide off a metal plate from left to right, or from right to left, is the whole secret. Instead of simply reproducing the operations of man's intelligence, the arithmometer relieves that intelligence from the necessity of making the operations. Instead of repeating responses dictated to it, this instrument instantaneously dictates the proper answer to the man who asks it a question. It is not matter producing material effects, but matter which thinks, reflects, reasons, calculates, and executes all the most difficult and complicated arithmetical operations with a rapidity and infallibility which defies all the calculators in the world.
The arithmometer is, moreover, a simple instrument, of very little volume and easily portable. It is already used in many great financial establishments, where considerable economy is realized by its employment.
It will soon be considered as indispensable, and be as generally used as a clock, which was formerly only to be seen in palaces, and is now in every cottage.}}
Models
The various models had capacities of 10, 12, 16 and 20 digits which gave results ranging from {{nowrap|10 billion}} {{nowrap|(minus 1)}} to {{nowrap|100 quintillion}} {{nowrap|(minus 1)}}. Only two machines were built outside this range:
The first prototype (the 1822 machine) had a capacity of 6 digits even though the machine described in the 1820 patent is an 8 digits machine.
The piano Arithmometer with a capacity of 30 digits, allowing for numbers up to 1 nonillion {{nowrap|(minus 1)}}, which was built for the 1855
Exposition universelle de Paris and which is now part of the IBM collection of mechanical calculators.
Jules VerneJules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
must have been quite impressed by this machine because in his novel Paris in the Twentieth Century, after mentioning Pascal and Thomas de Colmar, he talks of mechanical calculators that will be some huge pianos with keyboards of keys that will deliver answers instantaneously to anyone that can play them!
All the machines, regardless of capacity, were about 7 inches (18 cm) wide and from 4 up to 6 inches (10 to 15 cm) tall (the tallest ones had an incline mechanism). A 20 digit machine was 2 ft 4 in (70 cm) long while the length a 10 digit machine was around 1 ft 6 in (45 cm).
Prices
A 12 digit Arithmometer sold for 300 francs in 1853 which was 30 times the price of a table of logarithms book and 1,500 times the cost of a first class stamp (20 French cents), but, unlike a table of logarithms book, it was simple enough to be used for hours by an operator without any special qualifications.
An advertisement taken from a magazine published in 1855 shows that a 10 digit machine sold for 250 francs and a 16 digit machine sold for 500 francs.
Development Costs
In 1856, Thomas de Colmar estimated that he had spent 300,000 francs of his own money during the thirty years that he perfected his invention.
Physical design
The Arithmometer is a brass instrument housed in a wooden box often made of oak or mahogany and for the oldest ones ebony (solid or veneer). The instrument itself is divided into two parts.
Input - Control - Execution
The bottom part is composed of a set of sliders that are used to input the value of the operands. On the left of it is a control lever which allows to select the current operation, namely
Addition/Multiplication or
Subtraction/Division. A crank located on the right of the sliders is used to execute the operation selected by the control lever.
Output - Accumulator
The top part is a movable carriage composed of two display registers and two reset buttons. The top display register holds the result of the previous operation and acts as accumulator for the current operation. Each command adds or subtracts the number inscribed on the sliders to the part of the accumulator directly above it. The lower display register counts the number of operations performed at each index therefore it displays the multiplier at the end of a multiplication and the quotient at the end of a division.
Each number in the accumulator can be individually set with a knob situated right below it. This feature is optional for the operation counter register.
The accumulator and the result counter are in between two buttons used to reset their content at once. The left button resets the accumulator, the right button resets the operation counter. These buttons are also used as handles when lifting and sliding the carriage.
Arithmometer's Leibniz wheel
{{See|Leibniz wheel}}
The animation on the side shows a nine teeth Leibniz wheel coupled to a red counting wheel. The counting wheel is positioned to mesh with three teeth at each rotation and therefore would add or subtract 3 from the counter at each rotation.
The computing engine of an Arithmometer has a set of linked Leibniz wheels coupled to a crank handle. Each turn of the crank handle rotates all the Leibniz wheels by one full turn. The input sliders move counting wheels up and down the Leibniz wheels which are themselves linked by a carry mechanism.
In the arithmometer the Leibniz wheels always turn the same way. The difference in between addition and subtraction is achieved by a reverser operated by the execution lever and located in the movable display carriage.
Sliding the Top Carriage
First lift the carriage using the reset buttons located at its extremities, then slide it. The carriage can only be moved to the right initially. Release it when it is above the index you want (ones, tens, hundreds, ...).
Resetting the Displays
First lift the carriage using the reset buttons located at its extremities, then turn them to reset the display registers. The left button resets the accumulator, the right button resets the operation counter.
Addition
Set the control lever to
Addition/Multiplication and reset the display registers. Each turn of the execution lever adds the number from the sliders to the accumulator. So input the first number and turn the lever once (it adds it to zero) then enter the second number and turn the lever once more.
Multiplication
Set the control lever to
Addition/Multiplication and reset the display registers. To multiply 921 by 328, first input 921 on the input sliders and then turn the execution lever 8 times. The accumulator shows {{formatnum:7368}} and the operation counter shows 8. Now, shift the carriage to the right once and turn the lever 2 times, the accumulator shows {{formatnum:25788}} and the operation counter shows 28. Shift the carriage one last time to the right and turn the lever 3 times, the product {{formatnum:302088}} appears on the accumulator and the operation counter displays the multiplier 328.
Subtraction
Set the control lever to
Soustraction/Division. Lift the carriage then reset the display registers and input the minuend, right justified, into the accumulator using the corresponding knobs. Lower the carriage to its default position and then set the subtrahend onto the input sliders and turn the execution lever once.
Integer Division
Set the control lever to
Soustraction/Division and set the divisor onto the input sliders. While keeping the carriage lifted, reset the display registers, set the dividend, right justified, using the corresponding knobs and shift the carriage so that the highest number in the dividend corresponds to the highest number in the divisor. Lower the carriage then turn the execution lever as many times as required until the number situated above the divisor is less than the divisor, then shift the carriage once to the left and repeat this operation until the carriage is back to its default position and the number in the accumulator is less than the divisor, then the quotient will be in the operations counter and the rest will be in the accumulator.
Decimal Division
In order to increase the decimal division accuracy add as many zeros as required to the right of the dividend but still input it right justified and then proceed as with an integer division. It's important to know where the decimal point is, when you read the quotient (some markers, first ivory and then metal, were usually sold with the machine and used for this purpose).
Variants
In 1885, Joseph Edmondson of
HalifaxHalifax is a minster town, within the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It has an urban area population of 82,056 in the 2001 Census. It is well-known as a centre of England's woollen manufacture from the 15th century onward, originally dealing through the Halifax Piece...
, UK, patented his 'Circular Calculator' - essentially a 20-digit arithmometer with a circular carriage (the slides being arranged radially around it) instead of the straight sliding carriage. One benefit of this was that the carriage always remained within the footprint (to use a modern term) of the machine instead of overhanging the case at one side when the higher decimal places were in use. Another was that one could make a calculation of up to ten places, using half the circumference of the carriage, and then turn the carriage through 180°; the result of the calculation was locked in place by means of brass prongs mounted on the framework, and one could leave it there while making an entirely new calculation using the fresh set of display windows now brought into alignment with the sliders. Thus the machine could be said to have a rudimentary memory. See the Rechenmaschinen-Illustrated website (
External Links below) for pictures and a description.
External links