Adding Machines Through History: From Schickard to Pocket Calculators

Mechanical adding machines began in the 17th century with Wilhelm Schickard and Blaise Pascal. Advances by Leibniz, Thomas de Colmar (Arithmometer), and Willgodt Odhner (pinwheel) made reliable, mass-produced machines common in the 19th and 20th centuries. Educational and toy adders appeared alongside professional models. The arrival of electronic calculators in the 1960s-1970s, helped by integrated circuits, largely replaced mechanical adding machines in offices and schools.

A short history of adding machines

Mechanical adding devices trace back to the early 17th century, when scholars and inventors began translating arithmetic into gears and wheels. Wilhelm Schickard described and built a small calculating machine in 1623 that could perform basic addition and carry operations. Two decades later Blaise Pascal developed the Pascaline (around 1642), a brass, dial-based adding machine that refined mechanical methods for carrying and subtraction.

Key milestones in mechanical calculation

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz followed with the stepped-drum or "Stepped Reckoner" in the late 17th century, which extended mechanical calculation toward multiplication and division. In the 19th century, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar patented the Arithmometer (1820) and later organized its serial production; that design helped make reliable, manufacturable adding machines widely available.

Later in the century, Willgodt Theophil Odhner developed the pinwheel mechanism. Odhner-style machines were compact, reliable, and quickly became the foundation for many manufacturers worldwide. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a broad industry emerged: companies such as Burroughs, Felt (Comptometer), Monroe, Olivetti and others produced a wide range of office adding machines and calculators for businesses.

Adding machines in everyday life and education

Throughout the 20th century, mechanical and electromechanical adding machines handled bookkeeping, payroll, and retail calculations. Manufacturers also produced simpler, toy-like and educational devices to help children learn arithmetic. These devices emphasized visible digit displays and simple operation rather than the precision hardware used in professional machines.

The electronic transition

The dominance of mechanical adding machines ended with the spread of electronic calculators. Early electronic desktop calculators appeared in the 1960s; integrated circuits and inexpensive displays enabled the first truly portable, handheld calculators in the early 1970s. Companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Texas Instruments introduced scientific and pocket models that put fast arithmetic into a handheld device, and by the 1970s-1980s electronic calculators largely replaced mechanical adding machines in offices and schools.

Legacy

Adding machines shaped how people recorded, checked, and automated arithmetic for centuries. Their mechanical concepts - digit registers, carrying mechanisms, and user-centric controls - influenced later computing devices. Today, the same basic needs they addressed remain, now served by calculators on phones, dedicated devices, and software.