The first mechanical calculator was created in 1623.

By Wilhelm Schickard.

history of Abacus to the digital calculator emerged in the mid-17th century as an advancement over the traditional Chinese abacus.

Calculation tool that was created in 500 BC to aid in mathematical operations, owing to advancements in the field of mechanics.

This device included a mechanism that used a gear system to add, subtract, and multiply values. It also included a system that allowed the computations to be recorded, making it function somewhat like a memory. A few years later, in 1645, Blaise Pascal‘s famous adding machine (the Pascaline) would also appear, and during the following years, many other mathematicians would try to surpass it.

The idea was straightforward: a frame supported a number of rods, each of which had ten sliding beads. After all the beads were slid over the first rod, it was time to slide one over the next, which indicated the number of tens, and then one over the next, which indicated the number of hundreds, and so on (returning the ten beads from the first row to their original position).

Accounting professionals may have adopted the nickname “bean counters” as a result of it, as it made addition and subtraction quicker and less prone to errors.

However, the technology remained largely unchanged for the next 3,600 years, until the first mechanical calculators appeared in Europe at the start of the 17th century AD. The most notable contribution of John Napier’s logarithm discoveries was the development of the slide rule by Edward Gunter, William Oughtred, and others.

Essentially, the slide rule is a sliding stick (or disc) that allows for quick multiplication and division using logarithmic scales. The ability to perform complex trigonometry, logarithms, exponentials, and square roots was added to slide rules over time.

Addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are just a few of the arithmetic problems that can be solved with an abacus. It is made up of rods, and each rod has some beads on it.