“It happened that, owing to a mistaken direction, the computer to whom I first entrusted the figures used a somewhat different factor, yet the result came out closely the same.”
Of course this was the age in which the typewriter was a lady who earned her living by bashing the keys – too fast, necessitating the invention of the qwerty keyboard to stop her gumming up the works - and a computer was not yet a machine either.
And I don’t suppose he was really the first to make a mistake either. But I should like to know whether he had a calculating machine to help him in his endeavours, or even a slide rule or log tables.
CALCULATING MACHINES: Under this head the present Paris Exhibition shows no advance over that of 1862, the few calculating machines exhibited being of a very elementary nature.
The celebrated Pascal constructed a machine for executing the ordinary operations of arithmetic & Liebnitz invented another by which arithmetical computations might be made. The only calculating machine in the Paris Exhibition worthy of notice is that by CX Thomas, France. It multiplies 8 figures by 8 in 24 seconds. Price £20.
It is to be regretted that none of the extremely ingenious & beautiful calculating machines of Messrs Scheutz of Stockholm is exhibited. One of these machines is in the office of the Registrar General in London where it is performing very useful work. It not only calculates to 16 places of figures but simultaneously prints the results.
Illustrated London News 5 Oct 1867
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