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Making the Arithmometer Count

Article on the Thomas de Colmar arithmometer, ‘Making the arithmometer count’

The arithmometer was granted an honourable mention in the jury report but was clearly considered inferior to the submission of the Hungarian emigré doctor Didier Roth, who obtained a bronze medal for his adding and calculating machines and counters. His memoir was self-consciously presented as a case study in technological diffusion: having used the machine since 1855 and frequently demonstrated it to friends and colleagues he sought to document common reactions to the arithmometer and to identify and defuse the objections which he perceived as hindering its progress. He apparently imagined that it ‘ought to render important services in counting houses, banks, exchanges, and every place where frequent and rapid calculations are necessary.’ 45 Doubtless this vision of the potential market was conditioned by Thomas’s own experiences both as an army administrator with the French forces in Spain and Portugal and as director of the Phénix insurance company from 1819.

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