This lot of machines, one hundred in number (a goodly number in those
days), were equipped with a special hand-knob in front on the left side
for automatically printing the totals, and with means by which the
ciphers were printed only on operation of the paper shift-lever, which
allowed the operator to depress the keys from left to right or any way
he pleased.
[Sidenote: _Felt recorder in “Engineering” of London, Eng._]
The best evidence as to what these machines looked like is to be found
in the reproduction on the opposite page of an illustration which
appeared in “Engineering” of London, in 1891.
It will be noted that the patent drawings of the Felt calculator are
also displayed. They were used to describe the adding mechanism of the
recorder.
The total printing device is shown and described in patent No.
465,255, while the patent for the printing of the ciphers by the hand
shift-lever was not applied for until 1904.
It may be argued, and argued true, that these two later features in
their generic application to the recording-adding machine Art were
anticipated by Burroughs in his invention herein previously described.
But, assuming that these features were operative features in the
Burroughs machine, they could not be claimed in combination with a
printing mechanism that was operative to give practical results and in
themselves did not make the recording-adder possible. Nor was the means
shown for recording the totals of use except with means for legible
recording.
[Sidenote: _Total recording a Felt combination_]
[Sidenote: _Legible listing of items and automatic recording of totals
first achieved by Felt_]
There is no desire to discredit what Burroughs did, but let the credit
for what Burroughs accomplished come into its own, in accordance with
the chronological order in which it may be proved that Burroughs
really produced a machine that had a practical and legible recording
mechanism. Then we will find that to produce such proof we must accept
the fact that in all the successful recording machines manufactured and
sold by the Burroughs Adding Machine Co., the printing type-sector, the
printing type-hammers and the overlapping hammer-triggers with their
broad functioning features forming a part of Felt’s invention, have
been used to produce legible recording, and that the combination of
practical total printing was dependent on Felt’s achievement.
[Illustration: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz]
We might say that broadly Burroughs invented means that could be worked
in combination with the Felt printing scheme to automatically print the
totals, which is in evidence in all the practical machines put out by
the Burroughs Co.
But such a combination was first produced by Felt in 1890, and was not
produced by Burroughs until 1892.
As has been shown, Felt built his recording scheme into his key-driven
calculating machine, and added the paper shifting-lever to furnish the
power which was utilized finally for setting the printing-hammers and
tripping them for the ciphers.
Such a combination divided the work, but made a two-motion machine,
whereas the adding mechanism was designed on the one-motion principle.
Now the principle of the two-motion machine was old, very old. The
great Gottfried Leibnitz invented the first two-motion calculator in
1694. (See illustration on opposite page.)
The Leibnitz machine was a wonderful invention and there seems to be a
question as to its operativeness. As a feature of historic interest,
however, it created considerable commotion in scientific circles when
exhibited to the Royal Society of London.
[Illustration: Leibnitz Calculator, made in 1694
The First Two-Motion Machine Designed to Compute Multiplication by
Repeated Addition]
The first really practical machine of this type, however, was invented
by a Frenchman named Charles Xavier Thomas, in 1820, and has since
become known as the “Thomas Arithmometre.”
The Thomas machine is made and sold by a number of different foreign
manufacturers, and is used to a considerable extent in Europe and to a
limited extent in the United States.
[Sidenote: _The key-set principle more practical for recorders_]
But two-motion calculators, from Leibnitz down to date, have always
been constructed so that the primary or first action involved merely
the setting of the controlling devices and performed no function in the
supplying of power to operate the mechanism which does the adding. With
such machines the load was thrown on to the secondary action.
This, of course, made the primary action of setting, a very light
action, especially when keys came into use, and as there are several
key depressions to each secondary or crank action, it may be understood
that while the action of Felt’s printing or paper shift-lever was
light, the action of the keys which were called upon to perform most
of the work was much harder than it would have been if his adding
mechanism had been designed on the key-set crank-operated plan of
the regular two-motion machine such as illustrated in the Pottin or
Burroughs patents described.
Thus, when Burroughs applied the Felt recording principle to his
key-set crank-operated adding mechanism, he produced a type of
recording machine which proved to be more acceptable from an operative
standpoint than the recorder made by Felt; and yet the writer has read
testimonials given by those who had both the Felt key-driven recorder
and the Burroughs key-set crank-operated recorders, who claimed they
could see no advantage.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: From Drawings of Burroughs’ Patents Nos. 504,963 and
505,078]
Probably the best proof lies in the fact that Felt finally abandoned
the key-driven feature in his recorders, as may be noted from the
later-day “Comptograph.”