Pascaline

The Pascaline was a mechanical calculator designed and built by Blaise Pascal between 1642 and 1645. It is considered one of the first mechanical calculators, although Wilhelm Schickard had designed and built a calculating machine earlier, in 1623. Pascal was motivated to build the Pascaline to assist his father, a tax supervisor, with his laborious calculations.

The Pascaline was a box-like device with a series of geared wheels, each representing a digit. Numbers were entered by rotating the wheels. The machine could perform addition and subtraction directly. Multiplication and division were performed through repeated addition or subtraction.

The device utilized a carry mechanism, a crucial innovation, which automatically transferred carries from one digit to the next, simplifying the calculation process. This mechanism allowed for calculations to be performed more accurately and efficiently than by hand.

While Pascal built several versions of the Pascaline and produced approximately 50 machines, they were expensive to manufacture and not commercially successful in his time. Nevertheless, the Pascaline holds a significant place in the history of computing as a pioneering example of mechanical calculation. Its design and the principles it employed paved the way for further advancements in calculating machines and ultimately, the development of modern computers.