Blaise Pascal

Lightning Calculator - 1903

These Lightning Calculators are similar in design to Pascal's machines.
Unfortunately, Dr. Bergin doesn't have any original Pascal items in his collection, but if you have any you'd like to donate, they'd find a good home in the collection!

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. Observered shortcomings inclued 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.