But these machines were by no means the first calculators, and [What Will Makes] shows us in detail the workings of a mechanical calculator. His machine is beautifully made with gears hand-cut ...

Earlier this year, [Dan Maloney] went inside mechanical calculators. Being the practical sort, [Dan] jumped right into the Pascaline invented by Blaise Pascal. It couldn’t multiply or divide.

Wilhelm Schickard builds the first mechanical calculator in 1623. It can work with six digits, and carries digits across columns. It works, but never makes it beyond the prototype stage.