Part 15

One of the Early “Comptographs”]

This lot of machines, one hundred in number (a goodly number in those days), were equipped with a special hand-knob in front on the left side for automatically printing the totals, and with means by which the ciphers were printed only on operation of the paper shift-lever, which allowed the operator to depress the keys from left to right or any way he pleased.

The best evidence as to what these machines looked like is to be found in the reproduction on the opposite page of an illustration which appeared in “Engineering” of London, in 1891.

It will be noted that the patent drawings of the Felt calculator are also displayed. They were used to describe the adding mechanism of the recorder.

The total printing device is shown and described in patent No. 465,255, while the patent for the printing of the ciphers by the hand shift-lever was not applied for until 1904.

It may be argued, and argued true, that these two later features in their generic application to the recording-adding machine Art were anticipated by Burroughs in his invention herein previously described. But, assuming that these features were operative features in the Burroughs machine, they could not be claimed in combination with a printing mechanism that was operative to give practical results and in themselves did not make the recording-adder possible. Nor was the means shown for recording the totals of use except with means for legible recording.

There is no desire to discredit what Burroughs did, but let the credit for what Burroughs accomplished come into its own, in accordance with the chronological order in which it may be proved that Burroughs really produced a machine that had a practical and legible recording mechanism. Then we will find that to produce such proof we must accept the fact that in all the successful recording machines manufactured and sold by the Burroughs Adding Machine Co., the printing type-sector, the printing type-hammers and the overlapping hammer-triggers with their broad functioning features forming a part of Felt’s invention, have been used to produce legible recording, and that the combination of practical total printing was dependent on Felt’s achievement.

We might say that broadly Burroughs invented means that could be worked in combination with the Felt printing scheme to automatically print the totals, which is in evidence in all the practical machines put out by the Burroughs Co.

But such a combination was first produced by Felt in 1890, and was not produced by Burroughs until 1892.

As has been shown, Felt built his recording scheme into his key-driven calculating machine, and added the paper shifting-lever to furnish the power which was utilized finally for setting the printing-hammers and tripping them for the ciphers.

Such a combination divided the work, but made a two-motion machine, whereas the adding mechanism was designed on the one-motion principle. Now the principle of the two-motion machine was old, very old. The great Gottfried Leibnitz invented the first two-motion calculator in 1694. (See illustration on opposite page.)

The Leibnitz machine was a wonderful invention and there seems to be a question as to its operativeness. As a feature of historic interest, however, it created considerable commotion in scientific circles when exhibited to the Royal Society of London.

The First Two-Motion Machine Designed to Compute Multiplication by Repeated Addition]

The first really practical machine of this type, however, was invented by a Frenchman named Charles Xavier Thomas, in 1820, and has since become known as the “Thomas Arithmometre.”

The Thomas machine is made and sold by a number of different foreign manufacturers, and is used to a considerable extent in Europe and to a limited extent in the United States.

But two-motion calculators, from Leibnitz down to date, have always been constructed so that the primary or first action involved merely the setting of the controlling devices and performed no function in the supplying of power to operate the mechanism which does the adding. With such machines the load was thrown on to the secondary action.

This, of course, made the primary action of setting, a very light action, especially when keys came into use, and as there are several key depressions to each secondary or crank action, it may be understood that while the action of Felt’s printing or paper shift-lever was light, the action of the keys which were called upon to perform most of the work was much harder than it would have been if his adding mechanism had been designed on the key-set crank-operated plan of the regular two-motion machine such as illustrated in the Pottin or Burroughs patents described.

Thus, when Burroughs applied the Felt recording principle to his key-set crank-operated adding mechanism, he produced a type of recording machine which proved to be more acceptable from an operative standpoint than the recorder made by Felt; and yet the writer has read testimonials given by those who had both the Felt key-driven recorder and the Burroughs key-set crank-operated recorders, who claimed they could see no advantage.

Probably the best proof lies in the fact that Felt finally abandoned the key-driven feature in his recorders, as may be noted from the later-day “Comptograph.”

THE FIRST PRACTICAL BURROUGHS RECORDER

The first Burroughs patent to show the successful combination referred to was No. 504,963, applied for May 5, 1892, and issued September 12, 1893. The printing scheme, however, while indicated in the said patent, was applied for in a divisional patent, No. 505,078, issued on the same date. Drawings from both these patents are shown on opposite page.

The new printing device, as will be noted, instead of operating at the bottom of the machine, operates at the rear and prints the paper against a roll mounted outside of the casing.

Outside of adopting the Felt method of printing, the general scheme of construction used in the machine of the former-described Burroughs patent was maintained, except that the levers D, used to drag the denominational actuators down, were omitted, and a series of springs, one for each actuator, was supplied to pull such levers down as are released by key-depression when the common actuator drops under crank action.

Thus the description previously given will suffice for a general understanding of the mechanical functions of the adding mechanism and the general scheme for the setting up of the type in these later patents.

The construction of the type sectors, the printing-hammers and the trigger-latches used to retain the hammers against the action of their operating springs is best shown in the drawings of patent No. 505,078 on page 136. Fig. 1 shows the normal relation, while Fig. 2 illustrates the same mechanism in the act of printing.

The type sector as shown in drawings of patent No. 505,078 is marked K, while in the drawings of No. 504,963 it will be found marked 611ᵃ. They are formed from a continuation of the denominational actuators for the total register in the same manner that the type-wheel gear racks h, of the previously described Burroughs patent were formed.

The type u, are arranged on movable blocks marked 618, which are shown held in their retracted or normal position by springs 682, but when pressure is brought to bear against these type blocks in a direction outward from the sector, the spring 682 will give and the type blocks will slide outward in the slots provided to guide their action.

The paper, as will be noted, is fed from a roll, up between the type and the printing-roll 599, in the same manner as the paper of a typewriter, and through the interposition of an ink-ribbon between the type and the paper, the pressing of the type against the ink-ribbon, paper and roll gives imprint.