Origin of modern calculating machines

by J. A. V. Turck

The Third Felt Recorder

While the first lot of recording-adders manufactured by Felt were wholly practical, as was well proved by the statements of those who purchased them, it is easy to pick out features in their make-up that today, when compared with the new highly-developed Art, would seem to make them impractical.

The necessity of operating from right to left and the necessity of printing the totals by key depression were features that, in view of there being nothing better in those days, did not seem objectionable to those who used them. They were features, however, that Felt overcame and eliminated in the next lot of machines manufactured and placed on the market in 1890.

FELT'S COMPTOGRAPH

One of the Early “Comptographs”

This lot of machines, one hundred in number (a goodly number in those days), were equipped with a special hand-knob in front on the left side for automatically printing the totals, and with means by which the ciphers were printed only on operation of the paper shift-lever, which allowed the operator to depress the keys from left to right or any way he pleased.

Felt recorder in “Engineering” of London, Eng.

The best evidence as to what these machines looked like is to be found in the [reproduction on the opposite page] of an illustration which appeared in “Engineering” of London, in 1891.

It will be noted that the patent drawings of the Felt calculator are also displayed. They were used to describe the adding mechanism of the recorder.

The total printing device is shown and described in patent No. 465,255, while the patent for the printing of the ciphers by the hand shift-lever was not applied for until 1904.

It may be argued, and argued true, that these two later features in their generic application to the recording-adding machine Art were anticipated by Burroughs in his invention herein previously described. But, assuming that these features were operative features in the Burroughs machine, they could not be claimed in combination with a printing mechanism that was operative to give practical results and in themselves did not make the recording-adder possible. Nor was the means shown for recording the totals of use except with means for legible recording.

Total recording a Felt combination
Legible listing of items and automatic recording of totals first achieved by Felt

There is no desire to discredit what Burroughs did, but let the credit for what Burroughs accomplished come into its own, in accordance with the chronological order in which it may be proved that Burroughs really produced a machine that had a practical and legible recording mechanism. Then we will find that to produce such proof we must accept the fact that in all the successful recording machines manufactured and sold by the Burroughs Adding Machine Co., the printing type-sector, the printing type-hammers and the overlapping hammer-triggers with their broad functioning features forming a part of Felt’s invention, have been used to produce legible recording, and that the combination of practical total printing was dependent on Felt’s achievement.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz

We might say that broadly Burroughs invented means that could be worked in combination with the Felt printing scheme to automatically print the totals, which is in evidence in all the practical machines put out by the Burroughs Co.

But such a combination was first produced by Felt in 1890, and was not produced by Burroughs until 1892.

As has been shown, Felt built his recording scheme into his key-driven calculating machine, and added the paper shifting-lever to furnish the power which was utilized finally for setting the printing-hammers and tripping them for the ciphers.

Such a combination divided the work, but made a two-motion machine, whereas the adding mechanism was designed on the one-motion principle. Now the principle of the two-motion machine was old, very old. The great Gottfried Leibnitz invented the first two-motion calculator in 1694. ([See illustration on opposite page].)

The Leibnitz machine was a wonderful invention and there seems to be a question as to its operativeness. As a feature of historic interest, however, it created considerable commotion in scientific circles when exhibited to the Royal Society of London.

Leibnitz Calculator, made in 1694

The First Two-Motion Machine Designed to
Compute Multiplication by Repeated Addition

The first really practical machine of this type, however, was invented by a Frenchman named Charles Xavier Thomas, in 1820, and has since become known as the “Thomas Arithmometre.”

The Thomas machine is made and sold by a number of different foreign manufacturers, and is used to a considerable extent in Europe and to a limited extent in the United States.

The key-set principle more practical for recorders

But two-motion calculators, from Leibnitz down to date, have always been constructed so that the primary or first action involved merely the setting of the controlling devices and performed no function in the supplying of power to operate the mechanism which does the adding. With such machines the load was thrown on to the secondary action.

This, of course, made the primary action of setting, a very light action, especially when keys came into use, and as there are several key depressions to each secondary or crank action, it may be understood that while the action of Felt’s printing or paper shift-lever was light, the action of the keys which were called upon to perform most of the work was much harder than it would have been if his adding mechanism had been designed on the key-set crank-operated plan of the regular two-motion machine such as illustrated in the Pottin or Burroughs patents described.

Thus, when Burroughs applied the Felt recording principle to his key-set crank-operated adding mechanism, he produced a type of recording machine which proved to be more acceptable from an operative standpoint than the recorder made by Felt; and yet the writer has read testimonials given by those who had both the Felt key-driven recorder and the Burroughs key-set crank-operated recorders, who claimed they could see no advantage.

From Drawings of Burroughs’ Patents Nos. 504,963
and 505,078

Probably the best proof lies in the fact that Felt finally abandoned the key-driven feature in his recorders, as may be noted from the later-day “Comptograph.”

The First Practical
Burroughs Recorder

The first Burroughs patent to show the successful combination referred to was No. 504,963, applied for May 5, 1892, and issued September 12, 1893. The printing scheme, however, while indicated in the said patent, was applied for in a divisional patent, No. 505,078, issued on the same date. [Drawings] from both these patents are shown on opposite page.

Description of first practical Burroughs recorder

Burroughs Recorder

The new printing device, as will be noted, instead of operating at the bottom of the machine, operates at the rear and prints the paper against a roll mounted outside of the casing.

Outside of adopting the Felt method of printing, the general scheme of construction used in the machine of the former-described Burroughs patent was maintained, except that the levers D, used to drag the denominational actuators down, were omitted, and a series of springs, one for each actuator, was supplied to pull such levers down as are released by key-depression when the common actuator drops under crank action.

Thus the description previously given will suffice for a general understanding of the mechanical functions of the adding mechanism and the general scheme for the setting up of the type in these later patents.

The construction of the type sectors, the printing-hammers and the trigger-latches used to retain the hammers against the action of their operating springs is best shown in the [drawings of patent No. 505,078] on page 136. Fig. 1 shows the normal relation, while Fig. 2 illustrates the same mechanism in the act of printing.

The type sector as shown in [drawings of patent No. 505,078] is marked K, while in the [drawings of No. 504,963] it will be found marked 611ᵃ. They are formed from a continuation of the denominational actuators for the total register in the same manner that the type-wheel gear racks h, of the previously described Burroughs patent were formed.

The type u, are arranged on movable blocks marked 618, which are shown held in their retracted or normal position by springs 682, but when pressure is brought to bear against these type blocks in a direction outward from the sector, the spring 682 will give and the type blocks will slide outward in the slots provided to guide their action.

The paper, as will be noted, is fed from a roll, up between the type and the printing-roll 599, in the same manner as the paper of a typewriter, and through the interposition of an ink-ribbon between the type and the paper, the pressing of the type against the ink-ribbon, paper and roll gives imprint.

The pressure brought to bear on the type is through the hammer-blow of the printing-hammers 715, of which there is one for each ordinal printing sector. These hammers are pivoted to the rod 701, and are spring-actuated through the medium of the pin 741, the lever 716, and spring 780, which, combined with the cam-slot w, in the printing-hammers, serve to force the printing-hammers into the position shown in [Fig. 2].

The printing-hammers are normally retracted and latched by a series of trigger latches 117, through the latch-tooth b, which engages the lever 716 at v.

Each trigger-latch 117, is pivoted on the rod 700, and provided with an overlapping lug as shown in [Fig. 4]. These overlapping lugs, like those described on the trigger-latches in the Felt patent, serve as an automatic means of filling in the ciphers in the same manner as described in the Felt machine.

The means for tripping the overlapping trigger latches naturally differed from the means shown in the Felt machine, as the Burroughs machine was not key-driven.

A very ingenious means for the tripping of the trigger-latches is shown, consisting of the dogs 718, and rock-frame 711, and tie-rods 703-704, which co-operate with a cam-shoulder y on the arm of the printing-sectors, to remain neutral or to disengage the trigger-latches through a reciprocating action, shown in dotted lines in [Fig. 1, patent No. 505,078].

The tripping action takes place at the end of the forward motion of the actuating hand-crank through connections not shown in the drawings.

It may be understood that on account of the overlapping of the trigger-latches of the printing-hammers that if, as described in relation to the Felt recording-machine, one of the trigger-latches in any order to the left of the units order should be tripped, it would cause all the trigger-latches to the right to be also tripped, and the printing-hammers thus released to spring forward, giving an individual hammer-blow for each type impression.

Thus, if the five-hundred-dollar key should be depressed, only the trigger latch in that order need be tripped. This is brought about through the fact that normally the tripping-dogs 718 are held out of tripping engagement by the cam surface y of the type-sector, as the rock-frame in which the dogs are mounted is moved forward in its tripping action. But as the hundred-dollar order type-sector has been lifted through the setting of the (5) key in that order, it allows the tripping-dog to engage the trigger-latch of that order, and through the overlapping feature of the trigger-latches to trip and print the ciphers to the right.

It will be noted that the application of the printing-hammers varied in detail from that of Felt much the same as placing the latch on the gate post instead of on the gate. In the generic principle, however, the individual hammer-blow for each individual impression was maintained.

Date of use of first practical Burroughs recorder

There have been many conflicting statements made regarding the date of the first Burroughs listing or recording machine, which is probably due to the fact that the statements were not qualified by such terms as “practically operative” or “legible recording.”

Dates given as that of the first Burroughs recording machine range from 1884 to 1892. In a book published by the Burroughs Co. in 1912, under the title of the “Book of the Burroughs,” there was a statement that the first practical machines were made in 1891.

From the February 1908 Issue of
Office Appliances Magazine

H. B. Wyeth, at one time sales agent for the Burroughs Co., and whose father was president of the company in 1891 and several years thereafter, testified in court that the first sale of a Burroughs recording machine was made about December, 1892. Corroboration of his testimony is set forth in a Burroughs advertisement which appeared in the February number of Office Appliances Magazine in 1908, a [reproduction of which] is shown on the opposite page.

That Burroughs was experimenting as early as 1885 is no doubt correct; and that in this respect he antidated Felt’s first attempt to produce a recording-adder, is not questioned. But when it comes to the question of who produced the first practical recording-adder, there is no room for doubt in face of the evidence at hand.

Introduction of the
Modern Accounting Machine

As the reader has been carried along through the tangle of mechanical efforts of the men who have racked their brains to produce means that would relieve the burden of those who have to juggle with arithmetical problems and masses of figures in the day’s accounting, there was one phase of subject that has not been touched upon. While these inventors were doing their best to benefit mankind and, without doubt, with the thought of reaping a harvest for themselves, the public, who could have been the prime beneficiary, did not hasten to avail themselves of the opportunity.

Opposition to the use of machines for accounting

In the early days, when the key-driven calculator was marketed, and later when the recording-adder was also placed on the market, the efforts of the salesmen for each of these types of machines, in their endeavor to interest possible purchasers, were met with anything but enthusiasm. Of course, now and then a wide-awake businessman was willing to be shown and would purchase, but ninety-nine out of the hundred who really had use for a machine of either type could not at that early date be awakened to the fact.

Although the calculator and the recording-adder are indispensable factors in business today, and have served to improve the lot of the bookkeeper and those employed in expert accounting in general, they met with very strong opposition for the first few years from employers of this class. It was strongly evident that the efforts of book-keepers and counting-house clerks to prevent these machines entering their department were inspired by the fear that it would displace their services and interfere with their chance of a livelihood.

Again, men of this class, and even those in charge of large departments, took the mere suggestion that they had use for a calculator or recording-adder as an insult to their efficiency, and would almost throw the salesman out. Others would very politely look the machine over and tell the salesman what a wonderful machine it was, but when asked to give the machine a trial, they would immediately back up and say that they had absolutely no use for such a machine; whereas possibly now the same department is using twenty-five to a hundred such machines.

Banks more liberal in recognition

Of the two classes of machines, the recording, or listing machines, as they are commonly called, although a later product, were the first to sell in quantities that may be called large sales. This was probably due to the fact that they were largely sold to the banks, who have always been more liberal in recognizing the advantages of labor-saving devices than any other class of business.

The presence of these machines in the bank also had a tendency to influence business-men to install recorders where the key-driven calculator would have given far greater results in quantity of work and expense of operating. In these days, however, the average businessman is alive to his requirements, and selects what is best suited to his needs instead of being influenced by seeing a machine used by others for an entirely different purpose. The theory of using the printed list of items as a means of checking back has blown into a bubble and burst, and the non-lister has come into its own, not but what there has always been a good sale for these machines except for the first four years.

Improvements slow for first few years

On account of the years it took to educate business into the use of these two types of accounting machines, and the fact that the sales of both were small at first, there were few improvements for several years, as improvements depend upon prosperity.

Such changes as have been made since were largely aimed at refinements, but there are some very noteworthy features added to the performance of both types of machines, which are explained and described in following chapters, where the subject will be treated under the class of machines they affect.

The High-Speed Calculator