Arithmometer
Aritmómetro
- Date
- 1820 (comercial 1851) · confidence high
- Place
- Paris, France
- Credited to
- Thomas de Colmar
- People
- 👤 Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar1785–1870
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
The first reliable, mass-produced mechanical calculator for the four operations, based on Leibniz's stepped drum. It was sold for 90 years to banks, insurers and observatories.
1820 patent; industrial production from 1851; around 5,000 units by 1914.
What it led to
- Mechanised calculation in offices, insurance and statistics
- The calculating-machine industry (Odhner, Burroughs)
- Modern accounting and actuarial work
Built on
- Pascaline1642-1645
- Stepped reckoner1673-1694
- Precision clockwork mechanics
Made possible
- Torres Quevedo's electromechanical arithmometer1914-1920
- Odhner calculator (1874)
- Burroughs adding machine
- Actuarial calculation