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Wilmington, North Carolina once had a thriving Black middle class and an elected interracial government. In 1898 white supremacists used violence to overthrow that government, kill Black residents and drive many others from the city.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
 A Remington Rand
adding machine alongside its original cardboard box | |
| Type | Mechanical calculator |
|---|---|
| Introduced | 19th century (commercial production) |
| Discontinued | 1980s (phased out by electronic calculator) |
| Predecessor | Pascaline |
| Successor | Electronic calculator |
| Design firm | Various manufacturers |
| Date invented | 1642 |
| Invented by | Blaise Pascal, Wilhelm Schickard |
| Calculator | |
| Entry mode | Manual crank and keyboard input |
| Precision | Limited by digit capacity (commonly 8–12 digits) |
| Display type | Mechanical rotary wheels |
| Other | |
| Power consumption | Manual (hand-crank), some electromechanical models |
| Weight | Varies, typically 5–15 kg |
An adding machine is a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations. Consequently, the earliest adding machines were often designed to read in particular currencies. Adding machines were ubiquitous office equipment in developed countries for most of the twentieth century.
They were phased out in favor of electronic calculators in the 1970s and by personal computers beginning in about 1985.
Blaise Pascal and Wilhelm Schickard were the two original inventors of the mechanical calculator in 1642.[1] For Pascal, this was an adding machine that could perform additions and subtractions directly and multiplication and divisions by repetitions, while Schickard's machine, invented several decades earlier, was less functionally efficient but was supported by a mechanised form of multiplication tables. These two were followed by a series of inventors and inventions leading to those of Thomas de Colmar, who launched the mechanical calculator industry in 1851 when he released his simplified arithmometer (it took him thirty years to refine his machine, patented in 1820, into a simpler and more reliable form). However, they did not gain widespread use until Dorr E. Felt started manufacturing his comptometer (1887) and Burroughs started the commercialization of differently conceived adding machines (1892).[2]
To add a new list of numbers and arrive at a total, the user was first required to "ZERO" the machine. Then, to add sets of numbers, the user was required to press numbered keys on a keyboard, which would remain depressed (rather than immediately rebound like the keys of a computer keyboard or typewriter or the buttons of a typical modern machine). The user would then pull the crank, which caused the numbers to be shown on the rotary wheels, and the keys to be released (i.e., to pop back up) in preparation for the next input. To add, for example, the amounts of 30.72 and 4.49 (which, in adding machine terms, on a decimal adding machine is 3,072 plus 449 "decimal units"), the following process took place: Press the 3 key in the column fourth from the right (multiples of one thousand), the 7 key in the column second from right (multiples of ten) and the 2 key in the rightmost column (multiples of 1). Pull the crank. The rotary wheels now showed 3072. Press the 4 key in the third column from the right, the 4 key in the second column from right, and the 9 key in the rightmost column. Pull the crank. The rotary wheels now show a running 'total' of 3521, which, when interpreted using the decimal currency colour-coding of the key columns, equates to 35.21. Keyboards typically did not have or need 0 (zero) keys; one simply did not press any key in the column containing a zero. Trailing zeros (those to the right of a number) were there by default because when a machine was zeroed, all numbers visible on the rotary wheels were reset to zero.[3]
Subtraction was impossible, except by adding the complement of a number (for instance, subtract 2.50 by adding 9,997.50).
Multiplication was a simple process of keying in the numbers zero or more columns to the left and repeating the "addition" process. For example, to multiply 34.72 by 102, key in 3472, pull the crank, and repeat once more. Wheels show 6944. Now key in 347200 = 3472x100 (3472 in columns 3 to 6 from the right, and nothing in columns 1 and 2 from the right), pull crank. Wheels now show 354144, or 3,541.44. To multiply by 102, 3 additions are required. To multiply by any number, the number of additions required is the sum of its digits.
A later adding machine, called the comptometer, did not require that a crank be pulled to add. Numbers were input simply by pressing keys. The machine was thus driven by finger power. Multiplication was similar to that on the adding machine, but users would "form" up their fingers over the keys to be pressed and press them down the multiple of times required. Using the above example, four fingers would be used to press down twice on the 3 (fourth column), 4 (third column), 7 (second column) and 2 (first column) keys. That finger shape would then move left two columns and press once. Usually, a small crank near the wheels would be used to zero them. Subtraction was possible by adding complementary numbers; keys would also carry a smaller, complementary digit to help the user form complementary numbers. Division was also possible by putting the dividend to the left end and performing repeated subtractions by using the complementary method.[4]
Some adding machines were electromechanical – an old-style mechanism, but driven by electric power.
Some "ten-key" machines had input of numbers as on a modern calculator – 30.72 was input as 3, 0, 7, 2. These machines could subtract as well as add. Some could multiply and divide, although including these operations made the machine more complex. Those that could multiply used a form of the old adding machine multiplication method. Using the previous example of multiplying 34.72 by 102, the amount was keyed in, then the 2 key in the "multiplication" key column was pressed. The machine cycled twice, then tabulated the adding mechanism below the keyboard, one column to the right. The number keys remained locked down on the keyboard. The user now pressed the multiplication 0 key, which caused tabulation of the adding mechanism one more column to the right, but did not cycle the machine. Now the user pressed the multiplication 1 key. The machine cycled once. To see the total, the user was required to press a Total key, and the machine would print the result on a paper tape, release the locked down keys, reset the adding mechanism to zero, and tabulate it back to its home position.
Modern adding machines are like simple calculators. They often have a different input system, though.
| To figure this out | Type this on the adding machine |
|---|---|
| 2+17+5=? | 2 + 17 + 5 + T |
| 19-7=? | 19 + 7 - T |
| 38-24+10=? | 38 + 24 - 10 + T |
| 7×6=? | 7 × 6 = |
| 18/3=? | 18 ÷ 3 = |
| (1.99×3)+(.79×8)+(4.29×6)=? | 1.99 × 3 = + .79 × 8 = + 4.29 × 6 = + T |
William Seward Burroughs received a patent for his adding machine on August 25, 1888. He was a founder of the American Arithmometer Company, which became Burroughs Corporation and evolved to produce electronic billing machines and mainframes, and eventually merged with Sperry to form Unisys. The grandson of the inventor of the adding machine is Beat author William S. Burroughs; a collection of his essays is called The Adding Machine.
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Media related to Adding machines at Wikimedia Commons| Authority control databases: National |
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
An adding machine is a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations. Consequently, the earliest adding machines were often designed to read in particular currencies. Adding machines were ubiquitous office equipment in developed countries for most of the twentieth century. They were phased out in favor of electronic calculators in the 1970s and by personal computers beginning in about 1985. Blaise Pascal and Wilhelm Schickard were the two original inventors of the mechanical calculator in 1642. For Pascal, this was an adding machine that could perform additions and subtractions directly and multiplication and divisions by repetitions, while Schickard's machine, invented several decades earlier, was less functionally efficient but was supported by a mechanised form of multiplication tables. These two were followed by a series of inventors and inventions leading to those of Thomas de Colmar, who launched the mechanical calculator industry in 1851 when he released his simplified arithmometer (it took him thirty years to refine his machine, patented in 1820, into a simpler and more reliable form). However, they did not gain widespread use until Dorr E. Felt started manufacturing his comptometer (1887) and Burroughs started the commercialization of differently conceived adding machines (1892).
Standard Adding Machine Company was founded in the early 1890s (first records are from 1892) in Illinois and was the first company to (successfully) release a 10-key adding machine. The machine was a breakthrough for its time because it dramatically modernized computing. Earlier key driven adding machines, like the comptometer, featured eight or more columns of nine keys, which made them cumbersome and costly and their operators prone to mistakes. The 10 keys were set on a single row. The invention won an international grand prize during the 1904 World's Fair and was heralded as a "modern life preserver" in an office journal.
The Adding Machine is a 1923 play by Elmer Rice. The 2007 Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama called it "a landmark of American Expressionism, reflecting the growing interest in this highly subjective and nonrealistic form of modern drama."
Major Organ and the Adding Machine is an Elephant 6 supergroup led by the elusive and possibly fictional Major Organ. The liner notes of the band's debut album, Major Organ and the Adding Machine, leave it a mystery as to who is officially featured. When performing live on the Holiday Surprise Tour, the members of the band wore paper masks to maintain their anonymity. It is believed that the main contributors are Jeff Mangum, Julian Koster, Robert Schneider, and Kevin Barnes, whose vocals are most obviously present on the album, but a number of other Elephant 6 musicians are believed to have contributed too, including members of The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and of Montreal. In 1997, when thought to be a side project of Jeff Mangum and Julian Koster, Major Organ and the Adding Machine contributed a cover of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" to a Kindercore Records Christmas compilation. Over the next few years, they recorded a self-titled album and released it on Orange Twin Records in 2001. A trailer for a Major Organ and the Adding Machine film was shown at the 40 Watt Club on May 5, 2007 and August 11, 2007. The film was premiered on October 7, 2008 and shown at every show on the Holiday Surprise Tour in the following weeks. The film contains no dialogue and is accompanied by alternate arrangements of songs from the Major Organ and the Adding Machine album. An expanded version of the album, including a DVD of the film, was released on September 14, 2010, although some consumers received their copies before the announced release date. The film's credits, as well as the commentary, seemingly confirm the suspected roster of Elephant 6 musicians.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
