TURCK, J.A.V. - WITH A LETTER CONCERNING THIS BOOK.

Origin of Modern Calculating Machines: A Chronicle of the Evolution of the Principles that form the generic make-up of the Modern Calculating Machine.

Chicago, Western Society of Engineers, 1921. Orig. full cloth, frontcover and back stamped in blind. (2),196 pp., 45 illustrations, mostly full-page, incl. photographic reproductions of calculating machines designed by Pascal, Leibniz, Burroughs, Felt, and others. Fine and clean. With a typed letter in 4to, signed by the author, to Mons. Paul Jeannin in Paris, Turck thanks Jeannin for his letter congratulating him on the success of this book, and recalls with pleasure going with Jeannin to see Pascal's calculating machine in Paris. 21 lines dated Wilmette, Ill., l1 11 décembre, 1925. (in French). Also with Felt & Tarrant shipping lebel addressed to Jeannin, incorporatiing a picture of their invention, the Comptometer, the first practical desktop calculator. This was presumably used on the package that held this book.

First edition of the first popular history of modern calculating machines.
Turck was the inventor of several calculating machines, the earlliest being the Mechanical Accountant, which appeared around 1900. He joined the firm Felt & Tarrant in 1911, and his name appears jointly with that of Felt. After Felt's death, Turck took over design resoponsabilities for the business. The dual-register SuperTotalizer that appeared in 1934 was undoubtly his work. - Hook & Normann, origins of Cyberspace: 393.

Order-nr.: 38563