Mechanical calculator

Uncommon card · No. 160583

A mechanical calculator, or calculating machine, is a mechanical device used to perform the basic operations of arithmetic automatically, or a simulation like an analog computer or a slide rule. Most mechanical calculators were comparable in size to small desktop computers and have been rendered obsolete by the advent of the electronic calculator and the digital computer. In 1642, Blaise Pascal invented the first operational mechanical calculator with better tens-carry. Concerned about his father's exhausting work as tax collector in Rouen, Pascal designed the Pascaline to help with the large amount of tedious arithmetic required. In 1672, Gottfried Leibniz started designing an entirely new machine called the Stepped Reckoner. It used a stepped drum, built by and named after him, the Leibniz wheel, was the first two-motion design, the first to use cursors (creating a memory of the first operand) and the first to have a movable carriage. Leibniz built two Stepped Reckoners, one in 1694 and...

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