The prototype of the calculator - the arithmometer - existed more than 300 years ago. Nowadays, it is possible to make complex mathematical calculations with ease by silently pressing the keys of the same calculator or computer, mobile phone, smartphone (on which the corresponding applications are installed). And before this procedure took a lot of time and created a lot of inconvenience. But nevertheless, the appearance of the first counting device made it possible to save on the costs of mental labor, and also pushed for further progress. Therefore, it is interesting to find out who came up with the arithmometer and when it happened.
Arithmometer Appearance
Who came up with the arithmometer first? This man was the German scientist Gottfried Leibniz. The great philosopher and mathematician designed a device consisting of a movable carriage and a stepped roller. G. Leibniz introduced this invention to the world in 1673.
His ideas were adopted by the French engineer Thomas Xavier. He invented a counting machine to perform four arithmetic operations. The numbers were set by moving the gear along the axis until the desired numbers appeared in the slot, with each step roller corresponding to one digit category. The device was driven by the rotation of the manual lever, which, in turn, moved the gears and gear rollers, giving the desired result. It was the first arithmometer launched into mass production.
Device Modifications
The Englishman J. Edmondson was the one who came up with an arithmometer with a circular mechanism (the carriage performs an action around the circumference). This device was created in 1889 on the basis of the apparatus of Thomas Xavier. However, there were no particular changes in the design of the device, and this device turned out to be as bulky and inconvenient as its predecessors. The subsequent analogues of the device sinned the same.
It is well known who invented the numeric keypad arithmometer. It was an American F. Baldwin. In 1911, he introduced a counting device in which a set of numbers was produced in vertical digits containing 9 characters.
The production of such counting devices in Europe was established by engineer Karl Lindstrom, creating a more compact in size and original in design device. Here, the stepped rollers were already arranged vertically, rather than horizontally, and, in addition, these elements were staggered.
On the territory of the Soviet Union, the first arithmometer was created at the factory "Schetmash" them. Dzerzhinsky in Moscow in 1935. It was called a keyboard calculating machine (KSM). Their production continued until the beginning of the Second World War, and then was resumed in the form of new models of semi-automatic machines only in 1961.
In the same years, automatic devices, such as VMM-2 and Zoytron-214, which were used in various fields, were created, while the work was characterized by great noise and inconvenience, but this was the only device at that time that helped to cope. with a large volume of calculations.
Now these devices are considered a rarity, they can be found only as a museum exhibit or in the collection of lovers of ancient technology. We examined the question of who came up with the arithmometer, and also provided information on the history of the technical development of this device and we hope that this information will be useful to readers.