Encyclopaedia of Accounting, Vol. 2: Calculating Machines to Farm Bookkeeping (Classic Reprint) - Hardcover

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Excerpt from Encyclopaedia of Accounting<br/><br/>Calculating machines had been devised by Pascal (1642) and Leibnitz but the first really important machine of the kind is that invented by Charles Babbage. He himself called it a difference engine, because it was intended to calculate tables of numbers by method of differences. It was not intended to work out sums, but to calculate numerical tables such as logarithms  the processes employed being those of successive additions or subtractions. The mechanism entirely consisted of wheel gearing, and it was actuated by a handle. Later he designed a new machine  the ytical engine  which was intended to supersede the first, and was designed to solve problems at the direction of the operator. For this machine, however, the designs were not complete at his death, nor did he leave any working drawings. The machine, however, was one of much wider powers than' those of the arithmometer, which resembles Babbage's machines in some respects. This instrument, as well as the Slide rule, deals only with arithmetical numbers: the slide rule multiplies and divides correctly, but does not add or subtract; the arithmometer adds and subtracts, but multiplies and divides only indirectly. Quite lately very ingenious machines have been devised and perfected which not only add and subtract arithmetical numbers, but also are able to add and subtract money columns. The useful application of such a machine cannot well be overrated. The carrying of farthings, pence, and shillings is automatically done, while the operator has extremely simple adjustments and motions to make. In some of these machines, during an addition, the total is shown in dials at each instant; in others the sums added are type written, and the total only taken and written at the end of the whole Operation.

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