Lightning Calculator
Lightning Calculator - 1903
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) was the son of a tax collector in Rouen, a small town in southern
France. Gifted in mathematics and bothered by the tedium of adding long columns of numbers,
Pascal was 19 years old when he designed the " Pascaline" in 1642. A stylus was placed in an
indentation on the dials (surface) and the dial was rotated clockwise. Gears underneath the
surface contained a mechanism for a carry; subtraction was effected using complimentary
addition. "Modern" versions of Pascal's machine are shown in Lightning Calculator and the
Comptator.
This seven -place adding machine with automatic tens-carry was thought to be of lower quality
than a similar machine manufactured by Michael Baum. Observed shortcomings included the
need to move the stylus a large distance for any digit beyond five. Also, it is not possible to check
whether the correct number has been entered.