Brunsviga S Arithmotype

Four-species pinwheel machine with printing unit (from 1908)

The Brunsviga S Arithmotyp was the first printing four-species calculating machine to appear on the market. The machine is based on a patent issued to Franz Trinks on October 25, 1908 (DRP 226261), which patented the connection between the transmission element (pin wheel) and the printing mechanism. The Brunsviga S arithmotype was marketed by the Brunsviga company as a great development success, because it had been recognized since before 1900 that a synthesis of the printing adding machine (for example, the Burroughs machine) and the four-species machine would lead to an universal calculating machine. The machine remained unrivaled for a while: only two years later, in 1910, the firm of Seidel & Naumann, Dresden, brought a competitor (albeit much heavier and more space-consuming) onto the market in the form of the printing stepped drum machine XxX (cf. Inv. Nos. FDM 6148, 6314). However, both machines can only be regarded as stage successes on the way to the printing four-species calculator ("Printing Calculator"), since the calculator and the printing unit formed two separate functional units. Therefore, printing is more than cumbersome, so that it seems explainable that only a few copies of the certainly expensive machine could be sold.