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A bank clerk’s frustration with long columns of numbers helped produce a machine that could add and print. According to the Franklin Institute, William Seward Burroughs grew tired of the time addition took at work in 1882 and set out to speed it up mechanically. His Registering Accountant performed only one mathematical operation, addition, but paired its calculator with a printer. For anyone who has checked a lengthy total by hand, the appeal is easy to grasp: the machine could both work out a sum and print it.
The Institute says Burroughs applied for a patent in 1885, major production began in 1888, and the calculator-printer combination earned him its Scott Medal in 1897. The account leaves a mechanical detail open: how did the machine get its calculated result onto paper?
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- How did the machine print its results? : Still exploring
- What distinguished it from earlier adding devices? : Still exploring
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