The Lost Code

Adding Machine

1921
Copper, iron
H. 15 cm
L. 37 cm
An ancestor of modern-day calculators, the adding machine was a relatively cumbersome and noisy device that could only perform simply operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The machine's inventor was a young, 22-year-old mechanic from Chicago by the name of Dorr Eugene Felt. Four years after he invented the machine, the Felt & Tarrant company was created to manufacture and market it under the name of the Comptometer. In the mid-1960s, electronic calculators spelled the end for the mechanical machines.
Musée L'Aventure Leclerc Collection