We are saddened to share the passing of CHM Fellow Thomas Eugene Kurtz, co-creator of the BASIC programming language and Dartmouth Timesharing System. Read more about his remarkable life and contributions on our blog: https://t.co/KoI2l0EzBO
In 1685, while enhancing Pascal's calculator with automatic multiplication and division capabilities, he described a pinwheel calculator and invented the Leibniz wheel, which was used in all mechanical calculators for three centuries before the advent of electronic calculators.
As I read the Minix book and started to understand Unix, I got a big enthusiastic jolt. Frankly, it’s never subsided. (I hope you can say the same about something.)
- Linus Torvalds, Just for fun, 2001
Pascal’s calculator could also perform multiplication and division through repeated addition or subtraction. In particular, he designed the carry mechanism, which adds 1 to 9 on one dial, and carries 1 to the next dial when the first dial changes from 9 to 0.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, scientist, inventor, philosopher and Catholic writer who invented the first mechanical calculator in 1642. This calculator provided basic addition and subtraction functions.