This calculating machine eased the monotony of clerical work – This Day in Patent History

On August 21, 1888, William Seward Burroughs was issued four patents for the first successful “calculating machine.”

Adding machines of his time were unreliable and provided incorrect answers. This left clerks to do hours of tedious basic math.

Burroughs adding machine was designed for accuracy. Some of his drawings were done under a microscope for absolute accuracy.

The four patents (US No. 388,116-388,119) for his “calculating machine” were submitted in 1885.

In 1886, he founded the American Arithmometer Company, which later became the Burroughs Adding Machine Company (1904), then the Burroughs Corporation (1953), and in 1986, merged with Sperry Corporation to form Unisys.

Burroughs died in 1898 and was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

Source: EDN Network

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