An early adding machine, c. 1890, invented by William Seward Burroughs, grandfather of the beat writer. National Museum of American History Today every phone is a calculator, but in the late 1800s, ...

When we talk about a “computer” today, we generally picture an electronic machine that can perform various kinds of mathematical operations, manage its program flow, move data from one place to ...

IIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more. This stylus-operated non-printing ...

For most of human history, doing arithmetic, while sometimes aided by devices like the abacus or adders, was fundamentally an act of human intelligence. In the 17th and 18th century, a few natural ...