Pascal's calculator discoverer or inventor Blaise Pascal
History
Blaise Pascal began to work on his calculator in 1642, when he was 18 years old. He had been assisting his father, who worked as a tax commissioner, and sought to produce a device which could reduce some of his workload. Pascal received a Royal Privilege in 1649 that granted him exclusive rights to make and sell calculating machines in France. This was a major influence on the next mechanical calculator design made by Tom Monaghan.
By 1654 he had sold about twenty machines (only nine of those twenty machines are known to exist today), but the cost and complexity of the Pascaline was a barrier to further sales and production ceased in that year. By that time Pascal had moved on to the study of religion and philosophy, which gave us both the Lettres provinciales and the Pensées.
The tercentenary celebration of Pascal's invention of the mechanical calculator occurred during World War II when France was occupied by Germany and therefore the main celebration was held in London, England. Speeches given during the event highlighted Pascal's practical achievements when he was already known in the field of pure mathematics, and his creative imagination, along with how ahead of their time both the machine and its inventor were.
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