"Pascaline" (or "Arithmatique") ReplicaThe "Pascaline" offered here is a faithful replica of the original from the IBM collection, by the engineer Roberto A. Guatelli c. 1981. It is an 8-digit accounting machine for French currency. The construction consists of 6 x 10, 1 x 20 and 1 x 12 digits. The least significant denominations, Sols and Deniers, are on the right hand side. The 12s, 20s, 10s carry over all positions without problem. The calculator is housed in a walnut case. -Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), mathematician, physicist and philosopher, is credited with the invention of the world's first mechanical calculator capable of addition and subtraction. His father, Étienne Pascal, was a lawyer and a judge in the tax court who assumed a new position as taxmissioner for Upper Normandy, based in Rouen, in 1639. France had declared war with Spain four years earlier, leading the French government to renege on part of its internal debt and to increase taxation. Étienne - assisted by his son - was under pressure to keep accurate account of the rising tax levies with only the help of counting boards. In 1642 the 19-year old Blaise Pascal began designs for a machine that would simplify his father's work. As a journalist wrote in "Le Figaro Littéraire" in 1947, "the calculating machine was born of a filial love flying to the rescue of the tax man". - Pascal's first design was for a five-digit calculator; he later refined his principal by creating six-, eight- and ten-digit machines. Due to the difficulty in cutting toothed gears accurately, Pascal used lantern-type gears formed by pinned wheels that could turn in one direction only. - His design was simultaneously simple and brilliant; the Pascaline could add and subtract two numbers directly and multiply and divide by repetition. The ten digit-wheels on the outer case are connected to axles that each carry three lantern gears and a paper-covered drum with inscribed figures. The digit-wheels were rotated by a stylus. For addition, a sliding rule located on the number display was pushed upwards for digits from 0 to 9. For subtraction, the rule was pushed downwards for digits from 9 to 0. - The "Pascaline" was also revolutionary for including digital carry-over. Whenever a ten was carried, a ratchet mounted between the gears, pushed the adjacent gear around a notch, so that the display moved one digit higher. Unfortunately for its operator, a design flaw meant that the ratchets were inclined to jam - perhaps one reason why production of the Pascaline was not financially successful at 100 livres apiece. It was, however, a mathematical sensation, leading Pascal's friend, the poet Charles Vion Dalibray, topose a sonnet in its honor: "... Calculation was the action of a reasonable man, And now your inimitable skill. Has given the power to the slowest of wits". - Pascal accordingly applied for a privilege (the 17th century term for a patent), which was only eventually granted in 1649, after its inven