BOLLÉE, LÉON. - THE INVENTION OF "THE MILLIONAIRE CALCULATOR"

Sur une nouvelle machine à calculer.

(Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1889). 4to. No wrappers. Disbound. In: "Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de L'Academie des Sciences", Tome 109, No 20. Pp. (723-) 758 (entire issue offered). Bollée's paper: pp. 737-739. Disbound but clean.

First printing of the paper in which Bollée describes his invention of a new calculating machine, later called "The Millionaire", based on a multiplying mechanism which was capable of performing multiplication directly instead of using repeated addition. As it allows multiplication by any digit it was used by government agencies ans scientists, especially astronomers, well into the twentieths century.

Bollée did not produced his machine comercially, "... but in 1893 Otto Steiger of Munich patented a calculator based on Bollée's approach, which was manufactured between 1895 and 1935 by the firm Hans W. Egli of Switzerland and marketed under the name of "Millionaire".... Forty-six hundred "Millionaires" were sold, primarly in Europe." (Hook & Norman "Origins of Cyberspace" : 288).

Order-nr.: 48744