Adding Machines
There are two main differences between the mechanical adding machines and calculators of this early period. The adding machine was (and still is) most usually an "adder/lister" meaning that it added to its total register and printed each item after being "set" into the keyboard and a handle or bar operated. Both were originally limited to addition and complementary subtraction. Direct subtraction, multiplication and division would have to wait another 20 to 30 years and never appear on key-driven calculators, only key-set machines.
The second difference involves how the machine accepted keyed entries. With adding machines, a two step process was required. Values had first to be "set" into the keyboard and then a crank operated to add it to the running total and print it to the listing device. The key-driven calculator, on the other hand, having no listing mechanism to deal with, added each keyed digit as it was entered to the running total with no second operation required.
As we shall see, the interplay of these two related, yet subtly different technologies was to dominate the first 15 years of both Felt & Tarrant and the Burroughs Corp.
The Burroughs Machine
The original Burroughs machine was issued patents #388,116 and #388,118 on Aug 21, 1888. However, it appears that it had some design flaws and the first 50 produced are said to have been destroyed by their inventor (certainly a pity for future collectors).
Anyone gazing for the first time upon one of these stately late Victorian devices cant help but be impressed. The massive frame and thick plate glass sides were certain to reassure depositors and convey a sense of down-to-earth rock-solid stability. And when the bank teller would set the $$ amount into the keyboard, crank the handle and all could see the marvelous mechanism at work as the figures listed onto the paper tape... well, it must have been quite a show.
It would seem that most buyers of these machines were banks and other "counter service" businesses where the machine would reside at a fixed location. However, when they were needed elsewhere in the office or shop, it was no small task to move their massive bulk. One solution was to mount them atop extraordinarily sturdy wheeled stands capable of being raised to move and lowered to provide a firm footing.
The Comptograph
An adventure that came perilously close to dooming both Felt & Tarrant and the Comptometer, this "impossible dream" would occupy the talents of Felt for the better part of 15 long years.
The difficulties involved in combining a key-driven design with a printing mechanism proved such a challenge that the machine had virtually no impact on the market for adding machines.
J.A.V.Turck devotes some 40% of his book to a minute examination of the design of the Comptograph, the Burroughs adding/listing machine and their predicessors in a rather obvious bid to establish Felt's precidence in "the art". It is probably true that Felt's design had features that were superior to the Burroughs machine but that hardly mattered in the final reckoning as the incompatability of key-driven and listing technologies proved insurmountable.
Burroughs had many competitors in the adding machine market, including Dalton with their novel 2-row 10-key keyboard, the Monarch with the now-familiar "square" 10-key layout, the Remington, etc. But the ultimate challenge was to come from Victor Adding Machine Co.
Johantgen, the inventor of their original machine in 1919, died in April of 1932. Unaccountably, Victor waited until March of 1938 to hire Thomas O. Mehan (creator of the original Brennan machine) to replace him.
No man to waste time, Mehan promptly designed the model 600, a lightweight, full keyboard machine that had no dial-wheel register, thereby eliminating about half the parts. The model 700 with its 10-key keyboard, however retained the register and still had only one third the parts of the older design! One wonders why the register on adding machines was retained for so many years after it no longer served a purpose.
Dispite such challenges, Burroughs continued as a major player long after its machines had been "bested" by competitors.
Over the next half century, Burroughs was destined to dominate the (front office) adding machine market while warding off a variety of competitors and Felt & Tarrant's Comptograph would prove only a minor annoyance.
Burroughs' late entry into the (back office) key-driven calculator market would prove to be a formidable challenge to the Comptometer. How all this played out during the early history of these two firece competitors is a fascinating story, in itself.
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