Fields of Application
Pascalines came in both decimal and non-decimal varieties, both of which exist in museums today. They were designed to be used by scientists, accountants and surveyors. The simplest Pascaline had five dials ; later production variants had up to ten dials.
The contemporary French currency system used livres, sols and deniers with 20 sols to a livre and 12 deniers to a sol. Length was measured in toises, pieds, pouces and lignes with 6 pieds to a toise, 12 pouces to a pied and 12 lignes to a pouce. Therefore the pascaline needed wheels in base 6, 10, 12 and 20. Non decimal wheels were always located before the decimal part.
In an accounting machine (..10,10,20,12), the decimal part counted the number of livres (20 sols), sols (12 deniers) and deniers. In a surveyor's machine (..10,10,6,12,12), the decimal part counted the number of toises (6 pieds), pieds (12 pouces), pouces (12 lignes) and lignes. Scientific machines just had decimal wheels.
| Machine Type | All the other wheels | 4th wheel | 3rd wheel | 2nd wheel | 1st wheel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Decimal / Scientific |
base 10 Ten thousands... |
base 10 Thousands |
base 10 Hundreds |
base 10 Tens |
base 10 Units |
| Accounting | base 10 Hundreds... |
base 10 Tens |
base 10 Livres |
base 20 Sols |
base 12 Deniers |
| Surveying | base 10 Tens ... |
base 10 Toises |
base 6 Pieds |
base 12 Pouces |
base 12 Lignes |
| The decimal part of each machine is highlighted in yellow | |||||
The metric system was adopted in France on December 10, 1799 by which time Pascal's basic design had inspired other craftsmen, although with a similar lack of commercial success.
Read more about this topic: Pascal's Calculator
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—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairyland. The world seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry ... like a green lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit-trees are in blossom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If you would be a favourite of your king, address yourself to his weaknesses. An application to his reason will seldom prove very successful.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)