Editing Mechanical calculator (section)

==Ancient history==

[[Image:Abacus 6.png|thumb|right|A Chinese [[Suanpan]] (the number represented in the picture is 6,302,715,408)]]
{{further|Arithmetic|Abacus}}
{{quote | The desire to economize time and mental effort in arithmetical computations, and to eliminate [[human error|human liability to error]], is probably as old as the science of arithmetic itself. This desire has led to the design and construction of a variety of aids to calculation, beginning with groups of small objects, such as pebbles, first used loosely, later as counters on ruled boards, and later still as beads mounted on wires fixed in a frame, as in the abacus. This instrument was probably invented by the [[Semitic people|Semitic]] races{{efn|An obsolete classification with possible discriminatory connotations, see [[Semitic_people#Antisemitism]]}} and later adopted in India, whence it spread westward throughout Europe and eastward to China and Japan.<br>
After the development of the abacus, no further advances were made until John Napier devised his numbering rods, or [[Napier's Bones]], in 1617. Various forms of the Bones appeared, some approaching the beginning of mechanical computation, but it was not until 1642 that Blaise Pascal gave us the first mechanical calculating machine in the sense that the term is used today.|[[Howard Aiken]], Proposed automatic calculating machine, presented to IBM in 1937}}

{{further|Pascal's calculator}}
A short list of other precursors to the mechanical calculator must include a group of mechanical [[analog computer]]s which, once set, are only modified by the continuous and repeated action of their actuators (crank handle, weight, wheel, water...). Before the [[common era]], there are [[odometer]]s and the [[Antikythera mechanism]], a seemingly [[Out-of-place artifact|out of place]], unique, geared [[astronomical clock]], followed more than a millennium later by early mechanical [[clock]]s, geared [[astrolabes]] and followed in the 15th century by [[pedometer]]s. These machines were all made of toothed [[gear]]s linked by some sort of carry mechanisms.  These machines always produce identical results for identical initial settings unlike a mechanical calculator where all the wheels are independent but are also linked together by the rules of arithmetic.