A Mechanical Calculator for Arithmetic Sequences (1844-1852): Part 1, Historical Context and Structure

International audiencePrior to 1900, almost every mechanical calculatingmachine was aimed at facilitating a standard arithmeticoperation, and it tried to do so in a general way. Forinstance, the first machines were adding machines, andthey could add any two numbers, depending on thesize of the machine. In some cases, the machines weretailored for specific needs, such as adding nondecimalmonetary units. Most of the early multiplyingmachines were in fact adding machines, but the multi-plicand could be stored, shifted, and reused in a newaddition, although usually not automatically. Somemachines were equipped with automatic shifts, andtoward the end of the 19th century, some multiplica-tion machines were based on stored tables, allowing forshortcuts. All these machines were aimed at generalmultiplication