1820, France. It sounds like a device from a Philip Pullman novel, but it was the first commercially successful mechanical calculator. Thomas de Colmar used the Leibniz Wheel to produce a machine that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It was in popular use for one hundred years. See Calculating Devices.
1820, France. It sounds like a device from a Philip Pullman novel, but it was the first commercially successful mechanical calculator. Thomas de Colmar used the Leibniz Wheel to produce a machine that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. It was in popular use for one hundred years. See Calculating Devices.