BLASÉ PASCAL CALCULATING DEVICE(1623-1662):
In
1642 Blasé Pascal, at age 19, invented the Pascaline as an aid
for his father who was a tax collector. Pascal built 50 of this gear-driven
one-function calculator (it could only add) but couldn't sell many because of
their exorbitant cost and because they really weren't that accurate (at that
time it was not possible to fabricate gears with the required precision).
Up
until the present age when car dashboards went digital, the odometer portion of
a car's speedometer used the very same mechanism as the Pascaline to increment
the next wheel after each full revolution of the prior wheel. Pascal was a
child prodigy. At the age of 12, he was discovered doing his version of
Euclid's thirty-second proposition on the kitchen floor. Pascal went on to invent
probability theory, the hydraulic press, and the syringe. Shown below is an 8
digit version of the Pascaline, and two views of a 6 digit version:
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