Editing Adding machine (section)

{{Short description|Type of mechanical calculator designed to perform basic arithmetic}}
{{other uses}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2021}}
[[Image:Mechanical calculating machine.jpg|thumb|A Resulta&nbsp;-&nbsp;BS&nbsp;7 adding machine]]
[[Image:Old adding machine.JPG|thumb|An older adding machine. Its mechanism is similar to a car [[odometer]].]]
[[Image:Triumph adding machine gnangarra.JPG|thumb|Adding machine for the [[Australian pound]] {{circa}}1910, note the complement numbering, and the columns set up for [[£sd|shillings and pence]].]]

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 calculator]]s in the 1970s and by [[personal computer]]s beginning in about 1985. 

[[Blaise Pascal]] and [[Wilhelm Schickard]] were the two original inventors of the mechanical calculator in 1642.<ref>see [http://things-that-count.net things-that-count.net] and in particular, [http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal Schickard versus Pascal - an empty debate?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408215848/http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal |date=April 8, 2014 }}</ref> For Pascal, this was an adding machine that could perform [[addition]]s and [[subtraction]]s directly and [[multiplication]] and [[Division (mathematics)|division]]s by repetitions, while Schickard's machine, invented several decades earlier, was less functionally efficient but was supported by a mechanised form of [[multiplication table]]s. 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 Felt|Dorr E. Felt]] started manufacturing his comptometer (1887) and [[William Seward Burroughs I|Burroughs]] started the commercialization of differently conceived adding machines (1892).<ref>J.A.V. Turck, ''Origin of modern calculating machines'', The western society of engineers, 1921, p. 143</ref>