Computers & Business Machines

Burroughs Series P Adding Machine

Description

This full-keyboard printing electric adding machine has a tan steel frame and eight columns of tan and brown square plastic keys. To the left of these is a column of keys with the numbers 71 through 79 (there is a 65 instead of a 75), presumably denoting years. Left of this is a column with four keys for the months of quarterly statements (DEC, SEP, JUN, and MAR) and two keys labeled MR and CHK respectively. There are function bars and keys to the right of the number the keys.

Above the keyboard are four number wheels. Behind them is a two-colored ribbon and a printing mechanism, an adjustable wide carriage, and narrow paper tape. The type wheel for months has all 12 months on it. The ribbon and its spools are covered, with screws holding the covers in place. Plastic knobs at the ends of the carriage are rotated to advance the platen. On the right side of the machine is a place for inserting a crank, although there is no crank. At the back on the right side is a lock for the machine, with the key in it. There also is a lock at the left front of the machine.

The machine is marked on the front: Burroughs. The serial number, on a metal tag on the back of the machine, is: P366728D It is from after 1960. Another metal tag on the back of the machine is marked: SERIES P (/) BURROUGHS CORPORATION (/) DETROIT, MICHIGAN MADE IN U.S. America.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1960

maker

Burroughs Corporation

ID Number

1987.0285.02

catalog number

1987.0285.02

accession number

1987.0285

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Burroughs Simplex P601

Description

This full-keyboard printing adding machine has a gray metal case and the following columns of square tan and brown keys starting from the left:

1. column of 12 month keys

2. two columns of number keys, ranging from 1 to 9

3. column of keys with abbreviated financial terms

4. nine columns of number keys, each column ranging from 1 to 9.

5. two columns of function keys.

The carriage and electrical cord are missing. The 14 type bars include one for months, two for digits, one for the type of transaction, nine for the result, and one for special characters (indicating sum, subtotal, etc.)

A red tag attached to the object reads: PATENT DEPT. (/) #263. The machine is marked across the front above the keyboard: Burroughs. It is marked on the bottom: A7075. It is marked on the back on the inside of the case: 397.

This object was model #263 in the collection of the Patent Division of Burroughs Corporation.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1950-1960

maker

Burroughs Adding Machine Company

ID Number

1982.0794.64

catalog number

1982.0794.64

accession number

1982.0794

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Friden Adding Machine Cover

Description

This tan plastic cover for a ten-key Friden adding machine was found with machine MA.335423, which is by Marchant. It does not fit the machine.

Friden was making a ten-key adding machine (as opposed to a calculating machine) in about 1960. In 1964, the company began manufacture of electronic calculators.

References:

Newsweek, November 14, 1960, p. 56.

Accession file 313935.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1960

maker

Friden Calculating Machine Company

ID Number

1997.3040.01

catalog number

1997.3040.01

nonaccession number

1997.3040

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Commodore 201 Adding Machine

Description

By the 1960s most adding machines on the market had ten keys and printed results. Often they were manufactured overseas. This ten-key, printing adding machine was made in Japan and imported by Commodore, a firm then based in Toronto. It has nine digit keys, a slightly larger digit bar, and keys marked with two vertical lines and with three vertical lines. It also has four function keys right of the digit keys and what appears to be a place value lever on the left, with a mechanical display of the place value above this.

Behind the keyboard at the back of the machine is a paper tape holder with a paper tape, a printing mechanism, and a two-colored ribbon. A rubber cord fits in the back of the machine and there is a plastic cover. At the front of the machine is a metal carrying handle.

A mark on the top reads: commodore. A tag on the bottom reads: commodore 201 (/) No 22742. The tag also reads: COMMODORE BUSINESSS MACHINES INC. MADE IN JAPAN. A mark on the cord reads: KAWASAKI.

Commodore Business Machines was incorporated in Toronto in 1955 under the direction of Jack Tramiel, a Holocaust survivor who had spent some years in the United States. The company initially distributed typewriters and came to sell electronic calculators and then personal computers. Commodore adding machines were advertised in American newspapers as early as 1962 and as late as 1972 (by this time they faced severe competition from electronic calculators). The Commodore 202, which is quite similar to this model, was advertised in 1968 as “all new.”

References:

Pine, D., “Jack Tramiel, Founder of Commodore Computers, Lodz Survivor, Dies at 83,” The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California, 116 #16, April 20, 2012.

Los Angeles Times, January 21, 1968, p. C87. This is one of many advertisements found through the ProQuest database. It is for the Commodore Model 202.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1968

maker

Commodore Business Machines, Inc.

ID Number

1998.0246.01

accession number

1998.0246

catalog number

1998.0246.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Burroughs BR80C Adding Machine Ribbons

Description

Each of these two red and black adding machine ribbons is encased in clear plastic and in a paper box. Text on the front of the box reads: TWIN (/) SPOOL (/) RIBBON. Further text reads: BURROUGHS (/) NU-KOTE.

The ribbons were received with Burroughs Series P adding machines 1987.0285.01 and 1985.0285.02.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1960

ID Number

1987.0285.04

accession number

1987.0285

catalog number

1987.0285.04

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Olivetti Multisumma 22 Adding Machine

Description

This ten-key listing electric adding machine has a blue-green plastic case with a black plastic cover for the paper tape and two-color ribbon. It has three rows of white plastic digit keys, with two bars below these, one for entering single zeros and the other for double zeros. Right of the digit keys are total, subtotal, subtraction, and entry bars. Left of the digit keys is a column of function keys, with a lever at the top and at the bottom of the column. Left of these are three further function keys and a white key which may be depressed. Above the keyboard is a place indicator for digits being entered. Numbers of up to 12 digits may be entered.

Behind the keyboard is the printing mechanism, which includes one bar for printing special characters. Results with up to 12 digits may be printed. There is a paper tape 3” (7.7 cm.) wide, with a plastic serrated edge for tearing it. A lever at the right releases tension on the platen. A plug extends from the back of the machine. The machine has a dark gray cloth cover laminated with plastic.

A mark on top of the machine reads: olivetti-underwood. a mark on a metal plate attached to the back reads: Multisumma 22 Olivetti (/) MADE IN ITALY - FABRIQUE EN ITALIE. The serial number on the bottom is M 346630.

According to Shapira, Olivetti purchased a controlling share of Underwood in 1959. The Olivetti Multisumma 20, apparently a later machine than the Multisumma 22, was introduced in 1965.

Reference:

N. Shapira, Design Process Olivetti 1908-1978, 1979, p. 251, 252.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1960

maker

Olivetti-Underwood

ID Number

1997.0237.01

catalog number

1997.0237.01

accession number

1997.0237

maker number

M 346630

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Pascal Adding Machine Section (Replica)

Description

As a youth, Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was asked to assist his father in calculations relating to tax returns. Pascal, a future mathematician and natural philosopher, decided that addition and subtraction could be done more easily by machine. The French teenager invented one of the first mechanical adding machines. This is a replica of two counting units in a Pascal adding machine.

The model has a brass mechanism, paper number labels, and a transparent plastic case. It shows the two highest counting units of a Pascal adding machine. Two wheels at the front are for entering digits. They both link to horizontal cog wheels with pins protruding from them. These wheels, in turn, are linked to vertical cog wheels that drive the result drums at the back. The vertical wheels are also linked so that as the wheel on the right advances, a weight linked to the other wheel rises. Once the right wheel has been turned a full circle (entering 10), the weight falls and advances the left wheel by one unit, carrying a digit. Nines complements are marked around the result dials for use in subtraction.

Pascal and his associates made about fifty adding machines in the course of his life, but they never became a practical product. This replica was made for the Smithsonian in 1964.

Reference:

Michael R. Williams, A History of Computing Technology, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1964

maker

Search Corporation

ID Number

MA.323882

accession number

254097

catalog number

323882

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Victor Automatic Calculator

Description

This ten-key electric printing adding machine has a brown metal and plastic frame with brown keys. The block of nine number keys has a 0 bar below it, and a subtraction bar and a blank bar to its right.. A lever is in the right front corner and a red button in the upper right corner. To the left of the number keys are a clearance lever, a N (/) R lever, and a lever for which one setting is x. The place indicator is over the keyboard, and the printing mechanism, carriage, paper tape, and motor behind it. The machine allows one to enter 11 (possibly 12)-digit numbers and print 12 (possibly 13)-digit totals. In addition to numbers, the printing mechanism prints decimal markers and labels on both the right and the left of the numbers. A serrated edge helps to tear off the paper tape. The brown rubber cord is separate.

The model number is 76 86 54. The serial number is 2930-987. Dated from Smithsonian tag number. Walter J. Smith, who was a supply technician in Exhibits Production at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History from February 1979 to September 1994, used the machine.

Reference:

NOMDA’s Blue Book: Approximate January 1st Ages Adding Machines and Calculator Retail Prices, November, 1980, p. 57.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1967

maker

Victor Comptometer Corporation

ID Number

1995.3069.01

maker number

2930987

nonaccession number

1995.3069

catalog number

1995.3069.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Dial-A-Matic Adding Machine

Description

The front of this instrument is a six-wheeled stylus-operated plastic adding machine. Each wheel has a ring of ten holes. The holes are numbered from 0 to 9 counter-clockwise around the outside and from 0 to 9 clockwise around the inside. Outer digits are for addition, and inner ones are for subtraction. Square windows above the wheels show the result. A zeroing bar is on the right and a short aluminum stylus is on the left. The instrument is mounted on a piece of fiberboard. Behind it, mounted on a piece of wood on the fiberboard, are two rods, with five dials on each rod. Each dial has the digits from 0 to 9 around the outside. Each rod and its mounting slide along a track at the top of the instrument. These rods and dials were added by the donor, the inventor Waldemar Ayres (b. 1909).

The instrument is marked on the front: Dial-A-Matic ADDING MACHINE. It is also marked there: SP (/) STERLING. The letters “SP” are in a circle. The New Jersey firm of Sterling Plastics used the trademark of SP in a circle with a clear background from 1945, registered this as a trademark in 1953, and renewed the trademark in 1973. The company first used the term Dial-A-Matic in commerce in 1954, registered it as a trademark in 1955, and renewed the trademark in 1975. The device is based on a patent taken out by Otto Lehre of Springfield, New Jersey. Lehre applied for a patent April 30, 1954 and received it in 1957. The object came to the Museum in 1974. Hence it was created between 1955 and 1974. It seems likely that it dates from about 1960.

Reference:

Otto Lehre, "Calculator," U. S. Patent 2,797,047, June 25, 1957.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1960

maker

Sterling Plastics

ID Number

MA.335327

accession number

310129

catalog number

335327

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Contex Adding Machine

Description

This non-listing adding machine has a gray plastic case and gray and white plastic keys. The ten white numeral keys are on the top right, with the zero bar three times as long as the others. To the left of the numeral keys are four function keys marked C, X, Div, and -. A red plastic place marker is controlled by two keys beneath it. The large actuating bar is on the right. Results appear in 11 windows at the front of the machine. Numbers up to ten digits long can be entered. A twelfth window, to the right of the others, shows the number of times the actuating bar has been pressed. Instructions for operating the machine are given on a sticker attached to the bottom. The four plastic feet are rubber-covered.

The machine is marked on the front and on back: BDC CONTEX. It has serial number on a paper tag attached to the back: 516272. It is marked on the back: BOHN DUPLICATOR CORP. (/) New York 16, New York, U.S.A. (/) MADE IN DENMARK (/) PATENTS PENDING. Bohn would later distribute electronic calculators.

Given to donor Michael Sherman by a friend, Jack Schuss, but never used by donor.

Reference:

Accession file.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1965

distributor

Bohn Duplicator Corporation

ID Number

1995.0018.01

accession number

1995.0018

catalog number

1995.0018.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Comptograph

Description

This ten-key printing electric adding machine has a grayish tan metal casing, a paper tape, and nine white plastic numeral keys, arranged on a block, with zero bar below. Above the number keys is a place indicator with clearance bar. Other keys are marked X, +, -, #, and *. One key is marked with a diamond. The machine has a tan cord, a paper tape 2 3/8” (6 cm.) wide, and a gray cover. The rightmost printwheel prints special characters. A latch releases the lid to reveal the mechanism, the platen, the printwheels, and the two-color ribbon. A serrated plastic edge helps users tear off the paper tape. A lever on the top left releases the tension on the platen.

The machine is marked on the back: Comptograph. It is marked on a metal tag on the inside right: Mod. 2205 No 125253. It is marked on a paper tag on the bottom: MADE IN (/) WESTERN GERMANY. It is marked on the plastic cover: LEON (/) Office Machines Co., Inc. (/) 625 F. Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. (/) REpublic 7-3145.

The machine was used by the donor’s husband when he was working in lingerie manufacture in Richmond, Va.

Reference:

Accession file.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1962

ID Number

1992.0636.01

maker number

125253

accession number

1992.0636

catalog number

1992.0636.01

Data Source

National Museum of American History

General 599 Adding Machine

Description

This printing electric adding machine has a gray plastic case, a block of ten number keys, TOTAL, SUB-(/)TOTAL, -, and X keys to the right of the number keys, and two larger keys, one at each side of the keyboard. One may enter numbers up to nine digits long and print ten-digit totals. The place indicator is above the keyboard and a printing mechanism is toward the back, with a place for a narrow paper tape ,and a plastic serrated edge for tearing it. There is no paper tape. There is a gray cord.

The machine is marked: General (/) 599. It is also marked: 521824. It is also marked: ; GENERAL GILBERT (/) CORP. It is also marked: PAT. NO. 2,667,304 (/) OTHER PATENTS PENDING (/) 110-120 VOLTS A.C.D.C. .8 AMPS(/) MADE IN U.S.A.

Remington Rand adding machine 1982.0474.01 has a “General” cover.

U.S. Patent 2,667, 304 was granted January 26, 1954, to Robert S. Wallach of Bernardsville, N.J., and Torkel E. Torkelson of Baldwin, N.Y. They assigned the patent to Associated Development and Research Corporation of New York, N.Y.. According to Chris H. Bailey’s Two Hundred Years of American Clocks and Watches, the William L. Gilbert Clock Corporation of Winsted, Conn., began to manufacture adding machines in 1953. In 1957 it was taken over by General Computing Machines Company and the name changed to the General-Gilbert Corporation. In the 1960 Moody’s Manual, the General-Gilbert Corporation is listed on p. 2504 as at 276 N.Main St. in Winstead, Conn., with O. Williams as as president. It is said to be a maker of clocks and timing devices. In the 1962 and 1967 Moody’s Manual, on p. 1764 and 2794 respectively, the General Gilbert Corporation is listed at the same address with R. S. Wallach president. In 1962, it is said to be a maker of adding machines and clocks. The clock division was sold in 1964, according to Bailey. The General Gilbert Corporation is not listed in Moody’s Manual for 1972 or 1977. Because it is marked with the name of General Gilbert Corporation, this adding machine was made between 1957 and about 1972. Because it lists a patent number from 1954, it probably was made before 1970, hence an approximate date of 1965.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

ca 1965

maker

General Gilbert Corporation

ID Number

MA.336449

maker number

521824

accession number

1977.1142

catalog number

336449

patent number

2667304

Data Source

National Museum of American History

Burroughs Series P Adding Machine

Description

This full-keyboard printing electric adding machine is a relatively late desktop machine made by Burroughs Corporation. It has a tan steel frame and nine columns of tan and brown square plastic keys. To the left of these is a column of keys with abbreviations for various financial transactions. There are function bars and keys to the right of the number keys.

Above the keyboard is a two-colored ribbon and a printing mechanism, an adjustable wide carriage, and a narrow paper tape. The ribbon and its spools are covered, with screws securing the covers. Plastic knobs at the ends of the carriage are rotated to advance the platen. Next to the printing mechanism is a supplementary mechanism for setting dates. On the right side of the machine is a place for inserting a crank, although there is no crank. At the left front of the machine is a lock, with the key in it.

The machine is marked on the front: Burroughs. It has serial number on a metal tag on the back: P464325D. It is marked on another metal tag on the back: SERUES P (/) BURROUGHS CORPORATION (/) DETROIT, MICHIGAN MADE IN U.S. AMERICA.

The machine came to the Smithsonian from the Hyattsville, Maryland, branch of the Vermont Federal Savings and Loan bank.

Location

Currently not on view

date made

1960s

maker

Burroughs Corporation

ID Number

1987.0285.01

catalog number

1987.0285.01

accession number

1987.0285

Data Source

National Museum of American History