Beschreibung:

Description: The Adding Machine of Pierre Fardoil, c. 1700 Very early machine for adding and subtracting numbers from 0-100 in the shape of an astrolabe. The machine - signed "Pierre Fardoil à Paris - is hand-crafted in steel and brass, measures 5-1/2 inches in height and is in perfect working condition. Traces of silver indicate that this fine instrument was originally silver-plated. – Fardoil's contribution to the development of mechanical calculating devices is the introduction of his mechanism which enables the operator to read the result without counting the dividing marks on a circular scale of a disc shaped adding machine. Fardoil achieved this improvement by utilizing a planetary gear turning two round scales underneath two stationary hands ten times over the entire range of the calculator. The two scales show the numbers from 0–9 for additions and for subtractions respectively. This simple use of a planetary gear enabled Fardoil to provide a read-out in the range of 0–100 without the need of a carry-over from 9 to 10, 20, 30, etc. – Unlike the very early calculators by Schickard, Leibniz, Pascal, Grillet, and others, Fardoil's calculator was a true "pocket calculator" as it is flat and would fit in any pocket. – Instructions on how to operate the machine are included in German and English. – Calculators manufactured by hand before mass-production, which started around 1875, are extremely scarce; there are less than ten other models of calculators known which were invented or made before circa 1700. Fardoil invented his adding machine approx. 80 years before the French Revolution! King Louis XVI – executed in 1793 - was not even born when Fardoil built his adding machine. Louis XVI was born only about 50 years later, in 1754. – Pocket watches were already made in large numbers as everybody had a need to know time and pocket watches were a status symbol at the time. – The Fardoils were a watch-making dynasty. Pierre Fardoil was one of the sons of Pierre Fardoil senior from Blois, France, who died in 1669. Fardoil became a registered master watchmaker in 1684. He was a Huguenot and fled France for London due to religious persecution; there he worked under the name Peter Fardoil. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused the Huguenots, mostly protestants, to lose their civil rights and resulted in their escape to neighboring countries as refugees. Around 1700 Fardoil returned to France and set up his workshop at the Place Dauphine in Paris as watchmaker for the King, (maitre horloger du Grand Conseil du Roy). Fardoil died in 1722. Among many ingenious designs, Fardoil also invented his famous dividing engine for wheels with 102 to 800 teeth, built an astronomical pendulum clock for King Louis XV, the Grand Dauphin, and built many pocket watches which were characterized by novel and unusual features. Pierre Fardoil is also well known as the first watchmaker to create full-enamel dials. His valuable clocks and pocket watches are today part of famous museums such as the "Musée de l'Observatoire", the "Musée des Arts et Metiers" (both in Paris), "Musée International d'Horlogerie La Chaux-de-Fonds", Switzerland, and the "Science Museum", London, which has in its collection a pocket watch dated c. 1700. Fardoil's pocket watches are also to be found among important private collections. The astronomical pendulum clock survived to this day and is part of the collection of the "Musée de L'Observatoire", Paris, exhibited at the Château de Meudon,(Louis VX, Le Grand Dauphin, died there in 1711.) – Literature: "Thiout's Traitéd'Horlogerie", Paris, 1741, S. 55, tabel 23". Charles Holzapfel, "Turning and Mechanical Manipulations", Vol. II, 1856, S. 639. Robin Gwynn. “Huguenot Heritage: The History and Contribution of the Huguenots in Britain".There is another example of Fardoil's calculator known to exist. This example was donated to the "Musée des Arts et Metiers, Paris" in 1866 by the French "Académie des Sciences." How