Mathematical calculations which would occupy experts for years can be carried out almost instantaneously by ingenious and complicated machines. Simpler forms of automatic calculators have also been developed, and now they are indispensable adjuncts of modern commerce
ELECTRIC CALCULATOR which records individual totals and grand accumulative totals. Individual totals are recorded, after each operation, in the front dials. Depression of the bar on the right transfers the result and adds it to the total in the top dials. This model can be made to subtract by touching the minus key on the right
SOME devices produced by human ingenuity seem almost to think for themselves. Among such machines are the amazing contrivances that have been invented for solving the most intricate problems and arithmetical calculations, at one time possible only to the highly trained brain of the expert mathematician. Modern business relies on adding and calculating machines to facilitate the work formerly done laboriously by hand. In industry, banking, insurance, the Civil Service and other spheres the mechanization of mathematics proceeds apace.
The machines that lighten the task of the scientist and the engineer in making complicated calculations rank among the most wonderful devices in the world. Machines of this type, electrically operated and equipped with row upon row of toothed wheels, are capable of finding the factors of a number comprising nineteen digits. The machine is set (a comparatively simple matter) and three seconds after the starting switch has been pressed a ray of light on a photoelectric cell stops the machinery and the answer is available. A calculation of this magnitude would take a skilled mathematician many years.
Yet another electrically operated machine, known as a differential analyser, is used to solve the differential equations met with in engineering practice. Here again the machine accomplishes in seconds work that would otherwise entail an enormous amount of painstaking labour. In contrast to these huge and intricate machines are the comparatively simple devices that count the mileage of a cycle or motor car or the output of an industrial machine. Between these extremes, however, are the calculating machines used for business purposes. A modern calculating machine will add, subtract, multiply and divide, the various operations being dependent merely on the depressing of keys similar to those of a typewriter. The answers to the sums “set” to the machine are often given as a typewritten statement. Money sums and the reckoning of quantities in materials are dealt with by the machine without any difficulty. In its form as a combined typewriter and calculator the modern machine, often electrically operated, is used for the keeping of ledgers and other account books formerly posted by pen.
Book-keeping machines are also in use where mechanization is carried a step farther. The details supplied to the machine in the form of punched cards are automatically sorted, figures are added or otherwise dealt with, and at the touch of a lever the required information is delivered, tabulated and neatly printed. These machines are capable of sorting automatically 24,000 cards and of tabulating 10,500 cards in an hour.
TYPICAL OFFICE INSTALLATION of the Hollerith accounting system, carried out by the use of punched and printed cards. On the left is a 38-columns electric tabulator. Punched cards are fed in at the left, and the punched holes actuate the electrical counters in the centre, above the plugboard by which the action of the machine can be varied. Totals are printed in the unit to the right of the machine. A horizontal card sorter is shown on the right.
Calculating devices have been in use for hundreds of years. In the form called an abacus a simple adding apparatus was used by the Greeks, the Romans and the Arabs. The bankers of Rome used a stone abacus in which were a number of grooves for the digits, tens, hundreds and thousands. The figures were denoted in their respective grooves by small stones or calculi — hence the word calculate. The abacus has its modern counterpart in a number of ingenious little calculating devices that can be carried in the pocket. The most widely used of such instruments is the slide rule of the mathematician and the engineer.
The modern slide rule was gradually evolved from a device introduced by John Napier (1550-1617), the Scotsman who invented logarithms. “Napier’s Bones”, as they were termed, consisted of a number of bone strips marked with numbered divisions. These divisions could be brought together in a variety of combinations, so that the result could be read at a glance. Sets of these bones are preserved in the Science Museum, South Kensington.
England had her own peculiar counting device, the tally stick or stock given by a man to his creditor. The tally stick recorded the amount of a debt by notches cut right across, and after notching it was cut down the centre. The debtor retained one half and the creditor the other, so that on settlement the notches could be compared and tallied.
Bank Clerk’s Invention
Until the year 1543 the British Government used the tally system, and for nearly two hundred years the basement of the House of Commons remained stacked with countless thousands of dry tally sticks. When finally it was decided to burn this lumber the stove became overheated, and the ensuing fire destroyed not only the tally sticks but also the Houses of Parliament.
The first man to build a calculating machine was the French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, born in 1623. At the age of nineteen Pascal produced a machine that added figures and displayed the result by the simple turning of a handle. This machine of Blaise Pascal’s, with its train of gearwheels, was the forerunner of the mechanical calculators of to-day.
In England, Sir Samuel Morland built two calculating machines which he presented to King Charles II. One machine was for adding and subtracting sums of money and consisted of a number of wheels provided with holes punched under numbers engraved on the margin. The wheels were turned by inserting a pointed stylus in the appropriate hole and the method of counting seems to have resembled the dialling now familiar in connexion with the telephone. Morland’s machines were far from perfect, as they had no mechanism for the “carry forward” from units to the tens and the figure to be transferred had to be remembered and added to the tens column by the operator.
Early in the nineteenth century the next attempt was made to build a calculating machine. This mechanical calculator, intended for preparing and printing mathematical tables, was the work of Charles Babbage (1791-1871). Provided by the British Government with a grant of £17,000, Babbage worked on his invention for ten years, at the end of which time the money, with most of his own fortune, was used up. The mass of complicated mechanism was only half finished, and it now reposes in the Science Museum. Babhage’s work paved the way for other inventors, and the machine that he designed was remarkable as the first intended to record results on plates of copper or other material. The Babbage machine was designed also to prevent the possibility of any human error in its use.
Other inventors now appeared on the scene, among the most important of whom was Thomas de Colmar of Alsace. His machine, built in 1850, consisted of a number of gearwheels and pinions worked by a crank and was the forerunner of many of the machines used for statistical purposes to-day.
TYPEWRITER ACCOUNTING MACHINE, with which all necessary entries in ledgers and the like can be effected in one operation. The machine also calculates its own totals, according to the keys depressed.
It was not until many years later that the first practical adding machine was invented and built for commercial use. This machine was devised by an American book-keeper to lighten his task in a bank at Auburn, New York. The book-keeper was William Seward Burroughs, founder of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company of Detroit, Michigan. Burroughs was born in Rochester, New York, on January 28, 1858, and after a modest education in humble circumstances he entered the service of the Auburn Bank. The interminable casting of long columns of figures, with the necessity of constant vigilance to avoid or detect errors, led
young Burroughs to turn his thoughts to devising a machine that would do the work more quickly and accurately than was possible by human agency.
Then the young bank clerk’s health broke down, and on medical advice he changed his occupation. He moved to St. Louis. Missouri, and obtained a post compatible with his mechanical bent in a small machine shop. Every moment of his spare time was devoted to devising a machine that would record figures on paper by the depression of keys, and then would automatically add up those figures and print the total. The drawings that Burroughs prepared in connexion with his machine were in themselves marvels of accuracy. They were done by scribing on metal plates, and much of the work was executed under a microscope.
Finally the inventor managed to interest a number of people in his adding machine, and with a little capital he became associated with Joseph Boyer’s experimental machine shop in St. Louis. After months of patient work Burroughs exhibited his first machine in 1884, and four years later he took out a patent covering the invention. This patent was the first ever granted for a key-set recording and adding machine and the principle of its operation remains unchanged in the perfected Burroughs machines of to-day.
One of the most important safeguards against human error in the operation of this first machine was the “locked keyboard” device. This prevented the accidental depression of a wrong key after setting up the total of a column of figures, and enabled the operator to see the amount, on an indicator, before printing it.
In January 1886 the American Arithmometer Company was established at St. Louis, and machines were manufactured on a commercial basis. The result was failure. Once again the human element had proved too much for the machine, and in this instance the trouble was of a most unexpected nature. When operated by Burroughs himself the machines functioned perfectly, but the difficulty lay in the fact that no two people operated the lever in the same manner. One would pull the lever slowly, another would jerk it violently with results that differed widely.
The people who had sup-ported Burroughs were bitter in their complaints and the inventor locked himself in his workshop. For three days and nights Burroughs worked unceasingly, pausing only for a little food and brief snatches of rest. Then the inventor emerged after having devised a perfect mechanism termed the “automatic control”, that made the adding machine absolutely proof against any form of irregular operation. William S. Burroughs died on September 14, 1898. In 1904 the original concern, later the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, was established in a new factory at Detroit, Michigan.
BABBAGE’S DIFFERENCE ENGINE, in the Science Museum, South Kensington, represents one of the early attempts to perfect a calculating machine. The work of an amateur named Charles Babbage, this machine was designed, not for solving arithmetical sums, but for calculating and printing mathematical tables.
The working principles of the modern calculating machine are comparatively simple, and in most instances involve the use of toothed wheels actuated by the depression of keys. In some machines, used principally for multiplying, the number of teeth in the actuating wheel can be varied by turning a control knob. The adding and subtracting machines used in commerce, however, depend on a multiplicity of keys, every one with its attendant ratchet and wheel. Simple though the principles may be, the modern calculating machine is complicated in itself. Moreover, it is made in a large number of different types, all of which have mechanisms designed to fulfil their own needs. This specialization has been developed to an amazing degree to meet the increasing of modern business.
One of the least complicated machines is the desk type adding machine, in which the totals are not printed but are registered in the form of visible figures on dials arranged in line horizontally. Even in this one class of machine, however, many different types are available, varying in cost, in size and in details of construction. Some of these machines are dependent on key pressure to operate the counting wheels; in others the keys release their respective wheels, which are turned by an electric motor.
A hand-operated desk machine is capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing, and is set for its task merely by the depression of the appropriate master key. The sum to be worked out, whether in money, weights, or measures, is then tapped out on the numbered keys of the machine. It is essential that all keys shall be fully depressed in operation, but, if by chance any key is not struck correctly, the machine automatically locks up and refuses to add another figure until a special correction key is touched and the fault is rectified.
When all the figures involved in the calculation have been duly struck on the keys, the total or answer appears in the dials of the machine. The depression of another special key then “clears” the dials, and the calculator is ready for its next task.
In some machines there are two sets of dials, one at the front of the keyboard, the other at the back. These machines are electrically operated and, in addition to the key that “clears” the front dials, there is another that transfers the amount so cleared to the “grand total” dials at the back of the machine. Finally, there is yet another special key that clears both sets of dials. The utility of such a machine for casting an account book page by page, and recording the total of the whole book at the end of a definite financial period, will readily be appreciated. Clerical casting cannot be compared with the performance of the machine.
Figures Automatically Typed
A development of the dial machine is the desk adding machine operated by hand or electricity. In this the dial is dispensed with, and the figures are automatically typed on a roll of paper as the keys are struck. On the completion of the sum the total is automatically typed at the foot of the column. All figures are automatically alined as the work proceeds.
The next stage of utility achieved by the calculating machine was its use for book-keeping. The tendency in modern book-keeping methods is to dispense with the bound type of ledger and account book and enter all transactions on loose sheets or cards. It is in this connexion that the automatic book-keeping machine is of great importance. A modern book-keeping machine is really a combined typewriter and calculator, worked either by hand or by electricity. The sheet of paper or card is inserted in the machine, and the various transactions to be recorded are tapped out on the keys. The figures are accurately printed by the depression of a single key and the machine carriage is returned electrically at the end of its travel.
AUTOMATIC BOOK-KEEPING MACHINE which prints statements and posts ledgers and journals in one operation. There are no typewritten descriptions, but various keys print such abbreviations as GDS for “Goods” and BFD for “brought forward”.
When all items have been posted the totals are printed automatically on the touch of a key and the balances are similarly printed in black or red, according to whether they are “for” or “against” the firm whose account is in course of preparation. These machines are widely used in preparing statements of account that are presented for payment at the end of a month or quarter.
Yet another application is in the preparation of the sheets that have replaced the customers’ pass books in most of the big banks and their various branches.
The machines outlined above are not used solely for booking purposes, but in various modified forms they are used in factories and engineering shops for casting purposes, the preparation of stores lists, stock sheets and for making out the weekly pay roll. The clerk has become a machine operator as surely as his colleagues in the workshop or factory. The calculating machine as a bookkeeping device has proved of immense benefit in business, but even this escape from drudgery has not been regarded as final in man’s ceaseless striving after perfection.
In 1890 Dr. Herman Hollerith devised a complete book-keeping system, dependent for its operation not on a single machine, but on a whole series of the most amazing mechanical devices. Dr. Hollerith’s system made use of cards for recording all transactions, but the cards were initially printed with all the information likely to be required for the respective account books that they were intended to replace.
Entries were made by punching holes in the cards against the printed data, so establishing a permanent record. But the system goes farther than recording. The capacity of the Hollerith system ranges from the preparation of fully detailed wages sheets to the operation of vast Government schemes such as National Insurance and the Census of Great Britain. It is not possible in this chapter to detail all the various kinds of work that the Hollerith machines can do, but an account of the order in which they are used may be helpful.
The first machine in the system is the mechanical punch, in which the operator places a card and on it records the necessary information. This one punching of the card is the only manual entry of that transaction. Thereafter the machines take absolute charge of the book-keeping.
Electric Drive
The accuracy of these original cards is of supreme importance, and they are passed through a machine known as a verifier. The cards are placed in turn in the machine and the operator reads from his original data and depresses the keys accordingly. Should the punched card fail to agree with the operator’s information sheet the machine stops and the offending card is punched again. Both these machines are available also with electric drive. After verification the punched cards are placed in an electrical sorting machine, which rearranges the cards and sorts them out into their various categories according to the position of the various punched holes. This machine handles cards at the rate of 400 a minute. Then follows the electric tabulating and accounting machine.
This amazing device is fed with the cards and proceeds automatically to add, subtract, classify and produce printed statements. Its action resembles somewhat that of a piano-player, which reproduces music from the punched holes in a moving roll of paper. The machine pauses only momentarily while classifications change or totals are printed; and the required arrangement of data is obtained by the operation of a plugboard similar to that used for manual telephone exchanges.
In addition to these machines, the Hollerith system makes use of a number of subsidiary devices. Among these is an automatic reproducing punch that reproduces all or any portion of the information punched in one group of cards into another group, not necessarily in the same relative position. There is also a special ledger posting machine that is operated by cards from the sorting machine.
DUPLICATING PRINTING PUNCH used to prepare cards for the Hollerith accounting system. Alphabetical and numerical data are recorded on the cards by an arrangement of punched holes, which determine the course of the cards through the Hollerith system.
