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Topic: Comptometer

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	Comptometer Summary
		The comptometer was the first adding device to be driven solely by the action of pressing keys, which are arranged in an array of vertical and horizontal columns.
		Comptometer is, strictly speaking, a trade name of the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago (later the Comptometer Corporation), but was widely used as a generic name for the class of device.
		Special comptometers with varying key arrays (with from 30 to well over 100 keys) were produced for a variety of purposes, including calculating currencies, time and Imperial measures of weight.
	www.bookrags.com /Comptometer (0 words)

	Comptometer - Definition, explanation
		The comptometer was the first adding device to be driven solely by the action of pressing keys, which are arranged in an array of vertical and horizontal colums.
		Comptometer is, strictly speaking, a trade name of the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago (later the Comptometer Corporation), but was widely used as a generic name for the class of device.
		Special comptometers with varying key arrays (with from 30 to well over 100 keys) were produced for a variety of purposes, including calculating currencies, time and Imperial measures of weight.
	www.calsky.com /lexikon/en/txt/c/co/comptometer.php (231 words)

	Comptometer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The comptometer was the first adding device to be driven solely by the action of pressing keys, which are arranged in an array of vertical and horizontal columns.
		Comptometer is, strictly speaking, a trade name of the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Company of Chicago (later the Comptometer Corporation), but was widely used as a generic name for the class of device.
		Special comptometers with varying key arrays (with from 30 to well over 100 keys) were produced for a variety of purposes, including calculating currencies, time and Imperial measures of weight.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Comptometer (234 words)

	Smart Computing Encyclopedia Entry - Felt, Dorr Eugene
		With the Comptometer, the operator pressed keys in each of the columns, which set a numbered wheel mechanism that instantly displayed the appropriate number in the display window.
		However, Felt’s Comptometer became so popular at the time that the generic name for a calculator was considered Comptometer.
		Comptometers were used in some accounting offices until the 1970s, and then computers began replacing them; computers had added accounting abilities.
	www.smartcomputing.com /editorial/dictionary/detail.asp?guid=8CF5E5CB35CB42E1857F6F42970E2A2C&searchtype=1&DicID=17032&RefType=Encyclopedia (675 words)

	Key-Driven Calculators
		An April 1895 ad stated that Comptometers were "in use in over a thousand Counting Rooms, and in the offices of six Governments," and that "Over fifty have bought a second after buying a first." Assuming that every serial number was used, about 2300 Comptometers had been produced by late 1896.
		Comptometers with wood cases were produced for about 16.5 years, from mid or late 1887 through 1903, after which cases were made of metal.
		According to Boering, cumulative Comptometer sales were approximately 6,300 units by 1903; 15,650 by 1909; 77,650 by 1920; and 126,150 by 1926.
	www.officemuseum.com /calculating_machines_key_driven.htm (0 words)

	Comptometer
		The Comptometer was invented by the American Dorr Eugene Felt and was pateented in 1887.
		Comptometer type machines do not appear to have been as popular in continental Europe (add-listers, which produce a printed output, were more common there) and there were no significant manufacturers.
		Comptometers were widely used into the late 1970s and were ousted by advances in the use of computers for accounting rather than the development of electronic calculators.
	www.vintagecalculators.com /html/comptometer.html (0 words)

	Victor Adding Machine Co.
		Comptometer was a new name taken in 1957 by the Felt and Tarrant Manufacturing Co., which had been founded in Chicago in 1887 by Dorr E. Felt and Robert Tarrant.
		At the end of the 1970s, Victor Comptometer was purchased by Kidde Inc. of New Jersey.
		This entry is part of the Encyclopedia's Dictionary of Leading Chicago Businesses (1820-2000) that was prepared by Mark R. Wilson, with additional contributions from Steven R. Porter and Janice L. Reiff.
	www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org /pages/2890.html (384 words)

	System Source - Computer Museum
		The Comptometer was on the market for over 40 years and in that time a number of improvements were made.
		(Comptometer keys had a long travel, because the keys, rather than a crank, powered the works.) This prevented a partial press from generating an error as it could on an earlier model.
		Once, the operator realized the machine was locked, the digit could be fully pressed and the machine could be unlocked with the lever on the left.
	www.syssrc.com /html/museum/html/felt.html (531 words)

	Sumlock Comptometer/Bell Punch Anita C/VIII
		Sumlock Comptometer Ltd., a company that made mechanical calculating machines, in collaboration with another London-based company, Bell Punch Company, built and marketed a machine that would herald the beginning of a new age...an age where the use of slide rules and mechanical calculators would fade into the mists of memory.
		In addition or subtraction mode, when a numeric entry key is pressed, the digit corresponding to the column the key is pressed in immediately counts up or down (depending on whether the machine is in addition or subtraction mode) the number of counts specified by the key.
		This method of addition/subtraction is much like earlier comptometer type devices, where pushing the key down would cause, via mechanical or electro-mechanical methods, the corresponding digit counter to count the appropriate number of steps.
	www.oldcalculatormuseum.com /anitaC-VIII.html (3953 words)

	Cross Hairs on History - Faculty of Engineering - Magazine - University of Alberta
		Comptometers became obsolete as the age of microprocessors forged ahead, but they remind us of the days before calculators could fit onto the face of a watch.
		It was encouraging to hear from current Electrical and Computer Engineering students at the U of A that the comptometer has features that made it a far more reliable adding machine than modern-day calculators and computers.
		The comptometer was invented by American Dorr Eugene Felt and was eventually patented in 1887.
	www.engineering.ualberta.ca /uofaengineer/article.cfm?article=39466&issue=39463 (786 words)

	Comptometer Corporation ( Mechanical Adding Machine Company)
		In the Comptometer, pressing a key advanced a wheel mechanism to cause the positional value of that key to be added immediately to the displayed total.
		A good Comptometer operator was able not only to perform additions and subtractions at fast speed, but also multiplications and divisions by applying repeated additions and complementary subtractions, respectively.
		Comptometers weighed from 17 to 25 pounds and were priced between $300 and $400.
	www.scripophily.net /comcor1.html (0 words)

	Operating a Comptometer
		These instructions for performing the basic 4-functions on a "Comptometer" type calculator are taken from the operating instructions of the Sumlock machine manufactured by the Bell Punch Company, though they can be applied to Comptometer machines in general.
		An important feature of Comptometers, which is widely used in these instructions, is that keys in different columns can be pressed simultaneously.
		So to enter 123 the fingers of one hand are placed on the 1, 2, and 3 keys of adjacent columns and then all fingers are pressed at the same time.
	www.vintagecalculators.com /html/operating_a_comptometer.html (0 words)

	Felt & Tarrant's Comptometer
		Dorr E. Felt began working on what would become the Comptometer in 1885, making the first working version in metal in 1886 (the 1885 model was made mostly of wood and spare parts), and began low volume production by hand in 1887.
		Although rather common due to their relatively high production, the Comptometer is an historically significant machine, being the first successful multiple order key driven calculator.
		The 8 column Comptometer could add faster than an accountant's brain, which was its key to success.
	www.xnumber.com /xnumber/pic_comptometer.htm (268 words)

	Computing History Museum - Virtual Tour (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Dorr E. Felt of Chicago created the first comptometer (1885) using an old macaroni box at the age of twenty-two.
		The Comptometer is claimed to be the first successful keyboard adding machine on the market.
		Depending on the model, Comptometers generally ranged in weight from 17 1/4 pounds to 24 1/4 pounds, and could be purchased for $300 - $400.
	www.computinghistorymuseum.org /museum/eci_3_comptometer.htm (268 words)

	DIY Calculator :: Golden Age Of Mechanical Calculators
		This was the first mechanical calculator in which numbers were entered by pressing keys as opposed to being “dialed in” using wheels or similar techniques.
		A few years later, in 1889, Felt added a printing mechanism to his Comptometer (he called this new device a Comptograph), thereby claiming the honor of inventing the first printing calculator.
		This was cheaper to manufacture and easier to use than the Comptometer and it soon became the cornerstone of the Standard Adding Machine Company.
	www.diycalculator.com /popup-h-mechgold.shtml (744 words)

	Early Office Museum Adding and Calculating Machines (Site not responding. Last check: )
		There were significant differences between Burroughs machines and Comptometers.
		This was probably due to the fact that they were largely sold to banks." While Burroughs adding machines were marketed heavily to banks, photographs from the 1910s demonstrate that Burroughs machines were used in a wide variety of office settings.
		We have also identified Comptometer, Dalton, Universal, and Wales machines in photos taken during the 1910s.
	www.netangola.com /EarlyOfficeMuseum/calculating_machines.htm (1434 words)

	ComptHome
		These Comptometer pages are for those who are curious about the early development of the business calculator around the turn of the twentieth century in America.
		This is a living history of a remarkable invention, the role that it played in the business life of its time and the man who created it...
		This historical material on the Comptometer is included here with the permission of Brooke W. Boering.
	csrc.lse.ac.uk /History/ComptHome.html (174 words)

	The Felt and Tarrant Comptometer was invented by my great grandfather , (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The comptometer received its first patent and was put on the market in 1887.
		Then to subtract 160 the user would subtract 1 form 160 giving 159 and enter 159 on the comptometer using the compliments digits.
		The Comptometer was produced from 1887 to 1930 and in that time a number of improvements were made.
	www.csun.edu /~hbmth090/feltand.html (512 words)

	Comptometer - Comptometers- Competitors (Site not responding. Last check: )
		The Comptometer was not and is not a recording or listing machine; answers showed on window dials to be read off and entered into journals and other business papers.
		In early 1912, two patents were granted to Burroughs covering some unique enhancements to the expired Felt patents and providing the foundation for their line of calculators.
		Victor's merger with the remnants of the ailing Comptometer Corp. some 40 years later was an ironic twist for a company that was never a serious threat to the Comptometer.
	www.computermuseum.li /Testpage/Competitors.html (1756 words)

	DigiBarn Calculation Devices: Comptometers by the Felt & Tarrant Manufacturing Company
		The comptometer has an venerable place in the Digibarn physical collection: it is the very first artifact acquired for the collection, back in the late 1980s at a yard sale for $10.
		Brooke Boering is one of the world's experts and greatest collectors of the comptometer.
		It is easily distinquished from prior models by the presense of the "Comptometer" script logo on the front and back of the case.
	www.digibarn.com /collections/calculators/comptometer/index.html (1353 words)

	Comptometre
		Felt et Tarrant mirent au point la comptometer, commercialisé et produit en grande quantité à partir des années 1890.
		The origin of this type of machine comes from a will of the manufacturers of desk-top calculators to integrate keys to re-enter information, increasing thus considerably the speed of calculations.
		Felt and Tarrant reflect at the point the comptometer, marketed and produced in great quantity as from the years 1890.
	machineacalculer.free.fr /Compto.htm (758 words)

	TIME.com: How to Lose a Buck -- Sep. 12, 1960 -- Page 1 (Site not responding. Last check: )
		TelAutograph and Comptometer Corp., last week set off a speculative binge that resulted in some of the wildest trading the New York Stock Exchange has seen since 1929.
		The stock of Comptometer, which had also been rising, soared after Vice President Peter G. Mero announced that the company is the only one that produces a telewriting device that has been tested and found suitable for use over the tele phone.
		Comptometer was also prodded by the SEC to give a fuller explanation.
	www.time.com /time/magazine/article/0,9171,897573,00.html (647 words)

	The Postcodes Project \| E13 (Site not responding. Last check: )
		Before her marriage she trained as a comptometer operator.
		A comptometer was a calculating machine that could add up several columns of figures at once.
		Comptometer operators were hired out to companies to help with their book-keeping.
	www.museumoflondon.org.uk /postcodes/places/E13.html (122 words)

	Sumlock 509/S
		Larger comptometers have 9 keys in each column, whereas an abbreviated model requires two presses for numbers greater than 5.
		If you fancy a go at using a comptometer, a fabulous emulator, by Erez Kaplan, can be found here.
		On larger comptometers the keys have smaller numbers to the left of the main numbers, which is the key value subtracted from 9, to make it easier.
	www.lyvedon-way.fsnet.co.uk /calc/sumlock509.htm (862 words)

	Swedish Typewriter Page - Comptometer
		In 1885, the American, Dorr Eugene Felt, constructed his first Comptometer adding machine using wood from a macaroni box for the casing, steel wire and string for the mechanism.
		Första modellen var så pass lik Comptometer att Felt and Tarrant kom att dra Burroughs inför rätta.
		Skadan var dock redan skedd - comptometer höll på att bli synonymt med calculator (räknemaskin), vilket föranledde Felt och Tarrant att definiera sin maskin som en "äkta" Comptometer.
	web.telia.com /~u13101111/comp.html (375 words)

	Comptometer - Comptometers - Competitors
		The Comptometer was not and is not a recording or listing machine; answers showed on window dials to be read off and entered into journals and other business papers.
		The Comptometer, the Burroughs calculator and the Mechanical Accountant seem to constitute the entirity of commercially viable key-driven calculators.
		Victor's merger with the remnants of the ailing Comptometer Corp. some 40 years later was an ironic twist for a company that was never a serious threat to the Comptometer.
	www2.cruzio.com /~vagabond/Competitors.html (0 words)

	Comptometer - Comptometers - The Models
		The Comptometer was the first practical key-driven calculator with sufficient speed and reliablility to bring significant economic benefits to the processing of business data.
		Comptometers were available in 8, 10, 12 and even 16-column versions as well as for British money (sterling), fractions, etc on special order.
		Like the Supertotalizer that extended the shoebox line of Comptometers past the year of Felt's death, after WWII, programs were initiated in Great Britain and the Commonwealth to refurbish an unknown number of these older machines.
	www2.cruzio.com /~vagabond/Models.html (0 words)

	John Wolff's Web Museum - Comptometer Technical Description
		Ray's notes are a first-hand description of the principles and operation of the mechanism, recalled from his personal experience as a Comptometer service engineer in the 1960s.
		This official repair manual for the Model H Comptometer provides an authoritative description of the mechanism and its individual components, from the viewpoint of a factory-trained serviceman in the field.
		The Model K is a motorised Comptometer in which about half of the components are carried over from the previous models.
	home.vicnet.net.au /~wolff/calculators/comptometers/FTJ/Intro.htm (398 words)

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