NEW CALCULATING MACHINE.

Evening Star, Issue 2936, 17 July 1872, Page 3

NEW CALCULATING MACHINE.

{From the Anjus,) There is at the otfi.ee of the National Mutual Life Association, corner of Collins street and Market street, one of those beautiful calculating machines which have come i,nto use in England within the last two or three years. It h«is hecn imported by Air Temp’eton, the actuary, for working out the difficult sums in arithmetic which seem to be part of the daily routine of an insurance office or a building society. It is serviceable chiefly for multiplying and dividing, but it can also add and substiact. Outwardly it resembles a musical box. When the lid is lifted, the upp -t face is found to be divided into eight columns of figures, with an opening down the side of each column, for the passage up or down of a button. The figures in each column run from 0 up to 9. Suppose that the operator wishes to set out any sum up to tens of millions, he begins with the right-hand column, which stands for units, and places a button opposite to the given figure, and so on with the respective columns of tens, hundreds, kc. Above the tops of the columns there are two horizontal rows of hobs, like the air-holes in a concertina. The operator sets his sum out on the face of the columns, turns a handle at the right-hand side of the instrument, and the required answer is recorded on the upper horizontal row. The under row has a offferent use : it records the number of turns given to the hahdle, when any particular hole in the row is brought exactly ovey any given column. If it be a sum in multiplication —say to ascertain the seprare of a number consisting of live figures, the sum is nparked out by means of the buttons upon the columns. Then the operator, beginning with the right-hand column, turns the handles as many times _ round as the figure in the column contains units—-for example, four times for a 4 ; or five limes for a 5. The product is shown in the corresponding hole in upper row, unlesi it consist of more than one figure, when one ffiniro is shown and the other carried forward. Tlien the top row, which slides at tlie will of the operator, is drawn one step, and the handle turned the number of times required by the figure in the second column ; the instrument dvjy adds the figure brought from the f\rst column, if one has been carried, before recording the result. The same operation is repeated until the handle has been turned for each column. The inner workings of the machine, a series of wheels, axles, cranks, &c., seem most intricate on a first inspection, but the method of operation is most simple. A sum in multiplication or long division can be worked out in loss than a minute, and the result depended upon to be perfectly accurate. For sums in addition it is slower than a human, arithmetician would he ; but when 20 or 30 rows of figures have to be totted up, though the machine may be slow it is sure, and no “proof” is needed. The operator is_ told as ho goes along whether he is doing the sum correctly or not. If one lia-1 to add up as large a sum on paper, how many times might he not have to go over it to be sure that the total had been correctly arrived at ? For the computation of annuity tables, and for the ca'oulation of sums at oompv.uqd interest, the instrument is au invaluable servant. It is named M. Thorny l*e Colmar’s Arithmometer. The way to handle it oan be learned in a few minutes with very little explanation, but the principle on which the operations arc carried out could not be set forth without the aid of diagrams. In stereotyped phraseology, the instrument is a moat “ ingenious contrivance.”

(For continuation of news sw fourth page.)