Blaise Pascal began to work on his calculator in 1642, when he was 18 years old. He had been assisting his father, who … See more

The Pascaline is a direct adding machine (it has no crank), so the value of a number is added to the accumulator as it is being dialed in. By moving a display bar, the operator can see either the number stored in the calcu… See more

Pascalines came in both decimal and non-decimal varieties, both of which can be viewed in museums today. They were designed for use by scientists, accountants and surveyors. The simplest Pascaline had five dials; l… See more

Pascal planned to distribute the Pascaline broadly in order to reduce the workload for people who needed to perform laborious arithmetic. Drawing inspiration from his father, a tax commissioner, Pascal hoped to provide a s… See more

Besides being the first calculating machine made public during its time, the pascaline is also:
• the only operational mechanical calculator in the 17th century
• the first calculator to have a cont… See more

In 1957, Franz Hammer, a biographer of Johannes Kepler, announced the discovery of two letters that Wilhelm Schickard had written to his friend Johannes Kepler in 1623 and 1624 which contain the drawings of a previo… See more