Editing Calculator (section)

===Precursors to the electronic calculator===
{{Main|Mechanical calculator}}
{{See also|Human computer}}

The first known tools used to aid arithmetic calculations were: bones (used to tally items), pebbles, and [[counting board]]s, and the [[abacus]], known to have been used by [[Sumer]]ians and [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptians]] before 2000&nbsp;BC.{{sfnp|Ifrah|2001|p=11}} Except for the [[Antikythera mechanism]] (an "out of the time" [[astronomical]] device), development of computing tools arrived near the start of the 17th century: the [[Sector (instrument)|geometric-military compass]] (by [[Galileo]]), [[logarithm]]s and [[Napier bones]] (by [[John Napier|Napier]]), and the [[slide rule]] (by [[Edmund Gunter]]).{{sfnp|Houston|2023}}

[[File:17th-century-mechanical-calculators.jpg|thumb|17th century mechanical calculators]]
The [[Renaissance]] saw the invention of the [[mechanical calculator]] by [[Wilhelm Schickard]] in 1623,<ref>{{cite web |author=Jim Falk |title=Early Evolution of the Modern Calculator, Part 2. The Modern Era: 4.1 Schickard's Calculating Clock |work=Things that Count |url=http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.TheModernEpochAndTheEmergenceOfTheModernCalculator |url-status=dead |archive-date=2014-04-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140416210350/http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.TheModernEpochAndTheEmergenceOfTheModernCalculator}}</ref> and later by [[Blaise Pascal]] in 1642.<ref>{{harvp|Chapman|1942|pp=508, 509}}; "Pascal's invention of the [[calculating machine]]. Pascal invented his machine just four hundred years ago, as a youth of nineteen. He was spurred to it by sharing the burden of arithmetical labor involved in his father's official work as supervisor of taxes at Rouen. He conceived the idea of doing the work mechanically, and developed a design appropriate for this purpose; showing herein the same combination of pure science and mechanical genius that characterized his whole life. But it was one thing to conceive and design the machine, and another to get it made and put into use. Here were needed those practical gifts that he displayed later in his inventions....<br />
In a sense, Pascal's invention was premature, in that the mechanical arts in his time were not sufficiently advanced to enable his machine to be made at an economic price, with the accuracy and strength needed for reasonably long use. This difficulty was not overcome until well on into the nineteenth century, by which time also a renewed stimulus to invention was given by the need for many kinds of calculation more intricate than those considered by Pascal."</ref> A device that was at times somewhat over-promoted as being able to perform all four [[arithmetic]] operations with minimal human intervention.<ref>{{cite magazine |title=A New Calculator |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rf0IAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA100 |magazine=The Gentleman's magazine | year=1857 |volume=202 |page=100 |quote=Pascal and Leibnitz, in the seventeenth century, and Diderot at a later period, endeavored to construct a machine which might serve as a substitute for human intelligence in the combination of figures.}}</ref> [[Pascal's calculator]] could add and subtract two numbers directly and thus, if the tedium could be borne, multiply and divide by repetition. Schickard's machine, constructed several decades earlier, used a clever set of mechanised multiplication tables to ease the process of multiplication and division with the adding machine as a means of completing this operation. There is a debate about whether Pascal or Shickard should be credited as the known inventor of a calculating machine due to the differences (like the different aims) of both inventions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal |author=Jim Falk |title=Schickard versus Pascal - an empty debate? |work=Things that Count |archive-date=2014-04-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408215848/http://metastudies.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Site.SchicardvsPascal}}</ref> Schickard and Pascal were followed by [[Gottfried Leibniz]] who spent forty years designing a four-operation mechanical calculator, the [[stepped reckoner]], inventing in the process his [[leibniz wheel]], but who couldn't design a fully operational machine.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ginsburg |first=Jekuthiel |title=Scripta Mathematica |journal=Science |volume=86 |issue=2218 |year=1933 |publisher=Kessinger Publishing, LLC|isbn=978-0-7661-3835-3 |page=149 |pmid=17737911 |doi=10.1126/science.86.2218.13-a |s2cid=28216043 |quote=In 1893, the German calculating machine inventor Arthur Burkhardt was asked to put Leibniz machine in operating condition if possible. His report was favorable except for the sequence in the carry.}}</ref> There were also five unsuccessful attempts to design a calculating clock in the 17th century.<ref>see [[Mechanical calculator#Other calculating machines]]</ref>

[[File:Grant mechanical calculating machine 1877.jpg|thumb|left|The Grant mechanical calculating machine, 1877]]
The 18th century saw the arrival of some notable improvements, first by [[Giovanni Poleni|Poleni]] with the first fully functional calculating clock and four-operation machine, but these machines were almost always ''one of a kind''. [[Luigi Torchi]] invented the first direct multiplication machine in 1834: this was also the second key-driven machine in the world, following that of James White (1822).<ref>{{cite journal |author=Denis Roegel |editor= David Walden |url=https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7763737 |title=Before Torchi and Schwilgué, There Was White |journal=IEEE Annals of the History of Computing |date=October–December 2016 |volume= 38 |issue= 4 |pages=92–93 |doi= 10.1109/MAHC.2016.46 |s2cid= 28873771 |access-date=2018-05-06|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It was not until the 19th century and the [[Industrial Revolution]] that real developments began to occur. Although machines capable of performing all four arithmetic functions existed prior to the 19th century, the refinement of manufacturing and fabrication processes during the eve of the industrial revolution made large scale production of more compact and modern units possible. The [[Arithmometer]], invented in 1820 as a four-operation mechanical calculator, was released to production in 1851 as an adding machine and became the first commercially successful unit; forty years later, by 1890, about 2,500 arithmometers had been sold<ref>{{cite web |title=Modèles Payen |website=Arithmometre.org |url=http://www.arithmometre.org/NumerosSerie/PageNumerosSeriePayen.html |access-date=2013-10-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521075617/http://www.arithmometre.org/NumerosSerie/PageNumerosSeriePayen.html |archive-date=2013-05-21 |url-status=live}}</ref> plus a few hundreds more from two arithmometer clone makers (Burkhardt, Germany, 1878 and Layton, UK, 1883) and Felt and Tarrant, the only other competitor in true commercial production, had sold 100 [[comptometer]]s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Felt |first=Dorr E. |year=1916 |title=Mechanical arithmetic, or The history of the counting machine |page=[https://archive.org/details/mechanicalarithm00feltrich/page/n7 4] |publisher=Washington Institute |location=Chicago |url=https://archive.org/details/mechanicalarithm00feltrich |url-status=live |archive-date=2016-07-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160703013921/https://archive.org/details/mechanicalarithm00feltrich}}</ref>
[[File:EdithClarkeCalculatorUSPatentDrawing.png|thumb|upright|right|Patent image of the Clarke graph-based calculator, 1921]]
It wasn't until 1902 that the familiar push-button user interface was developed, with the introduction of the Dalton Adding Machine, developed by James L. Dalton in the [[United States]].

In 1921, [[Edith Clarke]] invented the "Clarke calculator", a simple graph-based calculator for solving line equations involving hyperbolic functions. This allowed electrical engineers to simplify calculations for [[inductance]] and [[capacitance]] in [[power transmission lines]].<ref>{{cite web|last1=Lott|first1=Melissa C.|title=The Engineer Who Foreshadowed the Smart Grid—in 1921|url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/the-engineer-who-foreshadowed-the-smart-grid-in-1921/|website=Plugged In|publisher=Scientific American Blog Network|access-date=14 August 2017|language=en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170814232626/https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/the-engineer-who-foreshadowed-the-smart-grid-in-1921/|archive-date=14 August 2017}}</ref>

The [[Curta]] calculator was developed in 1948 and, although costly, became popular for its portability. This purely mechanical hand-held device could do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. By the early 1970s electronic pocket calculators ended manufacture of mechanical calculators, although the Curta remains a popular collectable item.