During the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century, a large number of relatively inexpensive machines were marketed to businesses and others for use in performing simple addition and subtraction. In principle, these adders and other devices could also be used for multiplication by repetitive addition and for division by repetitive subtraction. Numbers were typically entered by using a stylus to move a dial or slide. Most of the handheld devices are cheap (sold for $1 to $25 in the USA). Some devices of this type have already been examined in other sections of this site, for instance, devices of Perrault, Caze, Kummer, etc.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©Unknown author / public domain.