Do you know who invented the machine?

The prototype of the calculator - an arithmometer - existed more than 300 years ago. Nowadays it is possible to make complex mathematical calculations with ease, silently clicking on the keys of the same calculator or computer, mobile phone, smartphone (on which the corresponding applications are installed). And earlier this procedure took a long time and created many inconveniences. But still the appearance of the first calculating device allowed to save on the costs of mental work, and also pushed to further progress. Therefore it is interesting to know who invented the machine and when it happened.

The appearance of an arithmometer

Who invented the machine first? This man was the German scientist Gottfried Leibniz. The great philosopher and mathematician constructed a device consisting of a movable carriage and a stepped roller. This invention G. Leibniz introduced to the world in 1673.

His ideas were adopted by the French engineer Thomas Xavier. He invented a calculating machine for performing four arithmetic operations. The setting of the numbers was carried out by moving the gear along the axis until the required digits appeared in the slot, with each step-wise roller corresponding to one digit of numbers. The device was powered by the rotation of the hand lever, which, in turn, moved the gears and pinions, giving out the desired result. This was the first calculator, launched into mass production.

Modifications of the device

Englishman J. Edmondzon was the one who came up with an arithmometer with a circular mechanism (the carriage performs the action along the circumference). This device was created in 1889 on the basis of the apparatus of Thomas Xavier. However, special changes in the construction of the device did not happen, and this device was as cumbersome and inconvenient as its predecessors. The same sinned and the subsequent analogues of the device.

It is well known who invented the keyboard with the numeric keypad. It was an American F. Baldwin. In 1911 he introduced a counting device in which a set of numbers was produced on vertical digits containing 9 characters.

Production in Europe of such counting devices was established by engineer Karl Lindström, creating a more compact in size and original in construction device. Here the stepped rollers were already arranged vertically, and not horizontally, and in addition, these elements were staggered.

On the territory of the Soviet Union, the first calculator was created at the "Scrimash" factory named after A.Sh. Dzerzhinsky in Moscow in 1935. It was called a key counting machine (KSM). Their production continued until the beginning of the Second World War, and then was resumed in the form of new models of semiautomatic machines only in 1961.

In the same years, automatic devices such as VMM-2 and Zoemtron-214 were created, which were used in various fields, and the work was characterized by great noise and inconvenience, but this was the only device at the 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 old technology. We considered the question of who invented the machine, and also provided information about the history of the technical development of this apparatus and we hope that this information will be useful for readers.