Torres Quevedo's electromechanical arithmometer
Aritmómetro electromecánico de Torres Quevedo
- Date
- 1914-1920 · confidence high
- Place
- Madrid, Community of Madrid, Spain
- Credited to
- Leonardo Torres Quevedo
- People
- 👤 Leonardo Torres Quevedo1852–1936
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A calculator that linked an electromechanical arithmetic unit to a typewriter: operations were entered by keyboard and the machine typed out the result. Torres Quevedo presented it in Paris in 1920 and had already proposed in 1914 floating-point arithmetic for a calculator of this kind.
It was shown in Paris in 1920 for the centenary of Thomas de Colmar's arithmometer; it was a demonstrator, not a stored-program machine. Its relation to the history of the computer is one of precedent in ideas, not of technical lineage.
What it led to
- a practical demonstration of an electromechanical calculator with typewritten input and output
- the proposal of floating point (1914) in a digital machine
- a line of thought linking to Babbage's Analytical Engine