Home » News » Research, IT, industry: In Voiron a revolutionary calculator was invented in 1842 (1/10 – year 2021) | ECHOSCIENCES

Research, IT, industry: In Voiron a revolutionary calculator was invented in 1842 (1/10 – year 2021) | ECHOSCIENCES

by Alain Guyot, calculus historian and member of the ACONIT association

France, a pioneer in computing in the 19th century

During the years between the defeat of Napoleon 1is and that of Napoleon III, France shone in the field of calculating machines. Indeed, the end of the military campaigns returned to other activities not only soldiers and officers but also civilians.

Charles-Xavier Thomas was just 30 years old in 1815. He had effectively led the civil stewardship of an entire army corps in Spain which, it seems, was less badly supplied than the others. Already rich and rallied to the Bourbons in 1814, to invest his fortune, he had successively created three insurance companies: The Phoenix,
with a Swiss businessman, then The sun
and the Eagle, for both royalist and Bonapartist policyholders. Insuring private owners against fire was an idea that came from the English, but which required efficient calculation given the large number of insured persons and the relative low premiums.

To help his business, Thomas invented and patented in 1820 (bicentenary in 2020) a calculating machine which he named Arithmometer.

The first known copy of an arithmometer dates from 1822. It is kept in the National Museum of American History.

This calculating machine was the subject of laudatory descriptions by experts in the Bulletin of the National Industry Incentive Society in 1822. It was then animated by pulling on a silk ribbon wound around a drum.

Improvements contributed to facilitate its use: addition of a spiral spring around 1823 (in place of the ribbon), of a crank in 1848, to transmit energy to the machine, new retaining mechanism and standardization of models in 1850. Between about 1822 and 1865, 500 machines of different models were manufactured. This number is only an estimate because Thomas did not number his models sequentially. On average, this represents less than one machine produced per month. In fact, Thomas was not looking to market his machine, but only to improve it. He was rich and the arithmometer was his violin d’Ingres, his dancer, if you forgive the expression.

But an unexpected challenge, coming from Voiron, will force him to promote his machine, and he will emerge victorious from the competition.

Let’s finish Thomas’s story first before returning to Voiron

In the period 1851-1854, to promote his machine, Charles-Xavier Thomas offered crowned heads of Europe as well as high personalities sumptuous machines with richly decorated boxes. In return, Napoleon III wishing to ennoble him, Thomas chooses his birthplace and becomes “Chevalier Thomas de Colmar”. He is immensely rich.

A prestigious arithmometer, photo Valéry Monnier /www.arithmometre.org

At that time, the production of his arithmometer is almost tenfold, 60% of the machines are exported, because his invention has hardly any competitors in the world. The name Arithmometer becomes generic for calculating machines.

Thomas de Colmar died in March 1870, and less than 6 months later Napoleon III was defeated by Prussia at Sedan. Both aggressor and defeated, the image of France is tarnished. The Brunsviga firm was founded so that “ Germans no longer have to buy French “. It copies the arithmometer and will for a time become the world leader in calculating machines.

This explains why after Thomas, innovation languishes in France, leaving the field open to competition. Let us take a small example: the Alsatian Jean-Baptiste-Sosime Schwilgué, the famous clockmaker from Strasbourg, had invented in 1844 a key adder (which received a gold medal the same year). It is also relatively easy to replace the cursors of Thomas’ arithmometer with keys, which was done by the Zurich native Hans Werner Egli, whose “millionaire” calculator then dominated the world of multipliers.

With the millionaire’s full 99-key keyboard, you use all your fingers to put down several digits at once, like a pianist playing a chord. The productivity is practically doubled, at the cost of a certain training (as for the piano).

What happens in Voiron from 1842?

Watchmaker Zoé Timoléon Louis Maurel is 23 years old. He works with his friend Jean-Honoré Jayet, 22, on the realization of a revolutionary calculator which he calls Arithmaurel. Maurel obtained a patent in December 1842, then another with Jayet in December 1846, both dated Voiron and deposited at the prefecture of Grenoble. These patents will be translated and filed in England in 1859.

But to build the prototype, you have to pay the mechanical workers, and the gears ordered from watchmakers in Savoie or Franche-Comté are expensive. To interest investors, Maurel and Jayet founded the limited partnership in 1849 T. Maurel, J. Jayet et Cie., registered at the Grenoble court.

One of the two CNAM arithmaurels, N ° Inv. 6709 (photo Museum of Arts and Crafts)

In order to obtain a large order from the administration, Maurel and Jayet decide to demonstrate the superiority of their arithmaurel. They carry out calculations in front of the academicians of science and in July 1849 obtain a gold medal at the Paris exhibition. Thomas had decided to present his arithmometer as well, but only obtained the silver medal and he was very disappointed. The same year, the Arithmaurel won the “Montyon Foundation Mechanics Prize”. Same half-defeat for Thomas at the Universal Exhibition in London in 1851, where his arithmometer only received the silver medal. The arithmaurel becomes Thomas’s pet peeve.

The popularity of these machines is then strong. In his anticipation text
Paris to XXe

century, Jules Vernes writes about calculating machines: “ It was a long time ago when Pascal built an instrument of this kind, the design of which seemed so wonderful then. Since that time, the architect Perrault, the Count of Stanhope, Thomas de Colmar, Maurel and Jayet, have made happy modifications to this type of device..
»

In 1855, the publicist Jacomy-Régnier distributed a small 38-page book entitled
History of numbers and mechanical numeration
in which Maurel is practically accused of having plagiarized Thomas. This firefight has an immediate and lasting impact on the reputation of arithmaurel. End of the adventure in Voiron, the company is dissolved in 1856. Maurel will become a renowned manufacturer of alarm clocks in Paris and Jayet will be controller of weights and measures.

To go further: Arithmometer versus Arithmaurel

You too, like the honorable academicians of science, can compare these two calculating machines, or rather their virtual model, to award the gold medal:

Thomas de Colmar arithmometer (www.aconit.org/arithmometre)

Arithmaurel by Maurel and Jayet
(www.aconit.org/histoire/calcul_mecanique/Arithmaurel)

These models can of course be manipulated, but you can let the computer do it for you by clicking on one of the signs +   −   ×   ÷ .

The Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers Paris keeps two arithmaurels, the Science Museum London, the Landesmuseum Braunschweig and the Arithmeum in Bonn each keep one. That of Bonn is in working order.

If you know where Maurel and Jayet’s studio was in Voiron, let us know, we’ll have a commemorative plaque affixed there.

Acknowledgments and Notes

Valéry Monnier, librarian, who runs the very complete Arithmometer website

Pierre Mounier-Kuhn, the story

at the CNRS & at the Sorbonne.

Michel Bardel and Valery Monnier, from theANCMECA, who digitized and published the arithmometer and arithmaurel patents.

Finally the computer science students of IMAG who have developed for
ACONIT

a virtual arithmometer.

The company Le Phénix gave birth to the Assurances Générale de France (AGF) group in 1966.

The Soleil-Aigle insurance group, nationalized in 1946, gave birth to the GAN in 1968.

Proofreading and editing: Gérard Chouteau and Xavier Hiron (ACONIT)

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