Otto Steiger (inventor)

Otto Steiger (* 1858 in St. Gallen ; † 1923 ) was a Swiss inventor of calculating machines .

Steiger came from St. Gallen and lived in Munich .

He is known for the invention and the construction of the millionaire calculating machine (English Millionaire ), the first commercially successful calculating machine with direct multiplication (German patent 1892). It is a multiplication body calculating machine in which the multiplication table is coded with sticks, which works in a similar way to a human calculator. It was therefore very fast in multiplications (and divisions) compared to machines that did addition-based multiplication. It was produced from 1895 by the company of Hans W. Egli (1862–1923) in Zurich. From 1893 to 1935 4655 copies were built. Before that, the Frenchman Léon Bollée built calculating machines based on the same principle, but not having the success of the “millionaire”. The price of the machine was relatively high, for example in the early 20th century it cost $ 475 to $ 1,100 in the US, about the same as a car. Another disadvantage was that the machine was relatively heavy at 35 kg.

The "millionaire" was only overtaken in speed by the advent of rotor machines in the 1930s. Egli also built rotor machines ( MADAS ) that were produced until the 1960s and still had design details from Steiger.

Web links

The Millionaire of Otto Steiger on the History of Computers website, English

Individual evidence

↑ A skilled operator could multiply two eight-digit numbers in seven seconds. It was initially too slow for additions, until this problem was also resolved in 1913 with a separate second input keyboard and an electric motor (1911).
↑ First in 1908, it was based on performing division by repeated addition / subtraction and on a principle by Alexander Rechnitzer (1883-1922) ( Friedrich L. Bauer Origins and Foundations of Computing , Springer 2010, p. 12). However, the model was subject to significant changes. Ray Mackay on later models

personal data
SURNAME	Steiger, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Swiss calculating machine designer
DATE OF BIRTH	1858
PLACE OF BIRTH	St. Gallen
DATE OF DEATH	1923

[1] A skilled operator could multiply two eight-digit numbers in seven seconds. It was initially too slow for additions, until this problem was also resolved in 1913 with a separate second input keyboard and an electric motor (1911).

[2] First in 1908, it was based on performing division by repeated addition / subtraction and on a principle by Alexander Rechnitzer (1883-1922) ( Friedrich L. Bauer Origins and Foundations of Computing , Springer 2010, p. 12). However, the model was subject to significant changes. Ray Mackay on later models