1874

A year later in Russia, a Swede, Wilgodt Odhner, patented a machine that was almost identical to Baldwin's. Another one of those historical accidents: Odhner was working for Ludvig Nobel in St. Petersburg, and while there, with Nobel's support, began work on his calculator. His plan - to design and manufacture an industrial calculator that would be small and simple, easy to operate, and so inexpensive that practically anyone who needed a mechanical aid would be able to buy one.22b

The French engineer E. Baudot (1845-1903) invents the Baudot-Telegraph. He calls the transmission speed Baud.

At left a typewriter of earlier years, you can imagine that it needs improvement to become commercially attractive.

It is Christopher Latham Sholes that improves the previous design by adding a roll for paper and an ink ribbon. The first successful modern typewriter is realized.

Remington Rand introduced its first commercial typewriter. (See below).(24)

The typewriter will develop via Teletype machine⁽²⁰⁾  to a keyboard: a flat box of just an few centimeters high with keys in the same order (QWERTY) as the old typewriter⁽²¹⁾. Until far into the 21st century that will remain the most used way to enter data into computers.

Feb 17, Thomas J. Watson Sr. (d.1956), U.S. industrialist, is born in upstate New York. In 1914 he will begin running the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., a predecessor to IBM. He will transform the financially ailing manufacturing business into the international giant IBM.(3)

1876

Alexander Graham Bell(USA) invents the telephone. At right you see Mr. Bell demonstrating his invention to the Academy of Sciences.

The age of telecommunication started via telephone wires. To select a number was a matter of turning a handle. This activated an induction coil to generate power to ring a bell. It rang a bell at everybody's home or room at the same time. Seen below is the original setup Bell used and can be seen at the S.I. in Washington USA.

⁽²³⁾

It will take computers about a century to start using telephone lines.

In this year Baron Kelvin built the first analogue machine: the "Harmonic Analyzer". This machine predicted the tides.⁽²²⁾(25)

1877

Alexander Graham Bell's took two key patents on the telephone in 1876 and 1877, these patents became the base of American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) founded by Bell in Massachusetts in 1877. (26)

1878

In 1878, Ramon Verea, a Spaniard living in New York, invents the first direct multiplying machine. 'Direct' means that only one turn of the crank for each figure in the multiplier was needed to perform the calculation, rather than the previously used repeated additions this is much faster than the shifting carriage or other digital methods.
Verea asserts that he did not make the machine to sell the patent or to put it to use, but simply to show that it could be done and that a Spaniard can invent as well as an American. The machine did not receive much publicity. ^22b

1879

G. Frege was one of the founders of modern symbolic languages. He proposed a system of notation that we now know as 'proposition logic'. His method will be used extensively in knowledge systems in the field of Artificial Intelligence from the late 1900's onwards.

Though Thomas Alva Edison (USA) invented the first light bulb that could burn a long time. Though he did not invent the lightbulb as commonly assumed it was however Edison who made the first practical and commercial viable, but above all endurable, lightbulb. From this light bulb the first vacuum tubes were evolved, these will be used in early electronic computers. (ABC - Colossus - Mark I etc.)

A committee investigates the feasibility of completing the Analytical Engine and concludes that it is impossible now that Babbage is dead.(2)

1880

^22b

V.T. Odhner parts company with Nobel and started his own company. In 1886 he began to manufacture the "Original Odhner" in Russia. An adding machine with a rack-wheel with variable number wheels. A later model called the Felix will be released in 1890. The Odhner machine sells very well all over Europe and sold until the first three or four decades of the 20th century.(4) However, patent rights for Germany had been bought by another firm, Grimme Natalis, which improved the patents and placed a similar machine on the market.  ^22b

1881

K. Hattori Co. Ltd was founded, in 1892 it name is changed into Seikosha Co. Ltd. And in 1985 the name was again changed. Now into SEIKO EPSON Corp., Epson stands for Son of Electronic Printer. (1)

1883

American Thomas Edison discovers the Edison effect, in which a electric current flows through a vacuum.

1884

Herman Hollerith (USA) applied for his patent on the punched card. It is a card with 45 evenly spread holes in rows of 5 by 9. Each hole can be given a special meaning.

Example: Initially such a card does not have holes (a blank card). We could say that if there is a hole on row number 3 position 4,  the subject is married. If there is a hole on position 5,2 the subject belongs to a group that is younger than 45 but older than 40.
This example is taken on purpose, because the first non-experimental use of the punched card system will be used by the census bureau of the USA a few years later.

Dorr E. Felt, a 24-year-old machinist finally found the answer to the problem that calculators were overshooting their maximum number range and thus jamming or giving wrong answers.
He chose Thanksgiving Day, 1884 to start the project.
Felt had solved the over-rotation problem by providing positive stops that were activated by the keys themselves. He knew his machines had to calculate faster than accountants, many of whom could mentally add four columns of figures at one time.^22b For years, Eugene Felt kept his original hand-made model on his desk at the Comptometer factory as a reminder of the company's humble beginning. Today the prototype can be seen at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.(5)

The IEE (Institute of Electrical Engeneers) was founded. One of the societies that will greatly stimulate the development of Electrical Engineering(1)

John Henry Paterson founds his company to produce cash registers it was named: NCR (National Cash Register).

1885

First variable toothed gear calculator Frank Baldwin (USA) and W T Odhner (Sweden) A multiplying calculator more compact than the Arithmometer enters mass production (2)

First printing adding machine. William Burroughs patents an adding machine that prints lists of added numbers.(2)

Last Updated on June 22, 2004

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Footnote and References