Adix Adding Machine Explained – Everything You Need To Know

Key Points

Adix adding machine inventor Josef Benedikt Pallweber was born on February 7th, 1858 in Austria.
First patented in 1904, the Adix adding machine would remain in production for the next 26 years until 1930.
The Adix adding machine was an early mechanical calculator with a click-wheel column that added, nine separate keys, and an exposed system of gears so you could observe the adding in action.

Before becoming the rectangular, digital devices we know today, the calculator took on many different mechanical forms during the early 20th century. Josef Benedikt Pallweber’s 1903 invention — the Adix adding machine — is one such example of this. Pallweber’s invention might look strange to us today from our modern perspective, but history makes it clear that his invention was one of the most historically significant of its time. Let’s break down all there is to know about Pallweber’s Adix adding machine to see exactly what it is about the device that made it such a groundbreaking invention.

*These black and white sketches illustrate the internal mechanisms of the Adix adding machine.*

Three Facts about the Adix Adding Machine

Improved versions of the device were manufactured under other names, such as the Diera in 1911 and the Kuli in 1913.
According to the device’s patents, it appears that Adix’s key selling point was that it was silent.
After leaving the Adix Company in 1908, Adix inventor Josef Benedikt Pallweber established a new company for technical inventions where he patented an “alarm device for portable cassettes and similar containers” for use in alarmed portable cash boxes.

Josef Benedikt Pallweber: Birth and Personal Life

Adix adding machine inventor Josef Benedikt Pallweber was born on February 7th, 1858, in Schörfling am Attersee bei Vöcklabruck, a market town in Upper Austria. His father, Ernst Pallweber, was the local locksmith.

Quick Facts

Created: 1903
Creator: Josef Benedikt Pallweber and Adolf Bordt
Original Use: Mechanical adding calculator
Cost: N/A

Josef Pallweber studied watchmaking in Switzerland and returned to Austria around 1880.

Pallweber worked as a watchmaker in Salzburg until 1886, when he then moved to Mannheim, Germany. There, on August 16th, 1886, he married Lina Mack (née Magdalena). Around 1890, the couple moved to Furtwangen.

While in Furtwangen, Pallweber worked at the Frankfurter Fabrik Mechanischer Apparate in Frankfurt from the middle of the 1890s until approximately 1902.

Pallweber died in Mannheim, Germany, on January 28, 1921.

Adix Adding Machine History

In 1903, the Adix Company Pallweber & Bordt of Mannheim, Germany was born. Entered into the commercial register in October to produce calculating machines, the company’s sole shareholders and inventors were the titular Pallweber and Adolf Bordt. Not long after the establishment of the Adix Company, the Adix adding machine was born. First patented in 1904, the Adix adding machine would remain in production for the next 26 years until 1930.

On October 1, 1908, Pallweber left the company, and Bordt became the sole proprietor. When Bordt took over, he continued to make improvements to the Adix while Pallweber went off to establish a new company for himself and his new invention: alarmed container devices.

*The Adix adding machine could only calculate sums up to 999.*

Adix Adding Machine: How It Worked

The Adix was a click-wheel column adder with nine keys. Its overall dimensions were 15 cm x 10 cm x 3 cm, and it weighed in at just half a kilogram. It was sold in a grained leather brown wooden box.

Uniquely enough, the whole of the Adix adding machine’s mechanism was exposed so that the operator could see how the key depression was transmitted to the counting mechanism — gears and all. For this reason, the look of the little machine is practically steampunk by today’s aesthetic standards.

Adding with the Adix adding machine occurred through key depression. Interestingly, the machine did not permit the addition of whole amounts — it merely permitted the addition of columns of individual digits. As such, with only three columns, numbers on the Adix adding machine could not exceed a total sum of 999. If the calculation in one column had been completed, then the operator had to make a note of the last digit and register the carryover through the keys themselves.

As far as looks were concerned, the Adix adding machine displayed the company’s name written in Gothic script on the inside lid of the brown wooden box and bore the word “Mannheim” underneath — the city where the device was manufactured, in other words. The small mechanical calculator consisted of 122 parts and, for the first time in a computing machine, used parts made of aluminum. Believe it or not, this was just one of many historically significant things about the Adix adding machine.

*The selling point of the Adix adding machine was the fact that it was silent.*

Adix Adding Machine: Historical Significance

The Adix adding machine was historically significant for several major reasons. For starters, the device had an exposed mechanism, forgoing the trouble of trying to hide what made the device work in favor of simply showing users what was going on under the hood (so to speak). Beyond this significant aesthetic design choice, the Adix adding machine also made history for its reliance on an early version of the keyboard we know and use today. Beyond this, the Adix adding machine was also significant for its small size. It might not have been capable of doing the kind of complicated math we’ve come to expect from calculators today, but for a very early mechanical calculator, the Adix adding machine was still a lot faster, a lot more accurate, and a lot more convenient than doing addition by hand.

Joesf Pallweber: Other Inventions

When Pallweber was 25, he invented what was essentially the first digital clock: the jump hour watch. These pocket watches displayed the hour and minutes in two separate round windows. An analog second hand was displayed in a third, round window. Pallweber granted the patent to the International Watch Company and the jump hour watch became all the rage.

When Pallweber was 25, he invented what was essentially the first digital clock: the jump hour watch. These pocket watches displayed the hour and minutes in two separate round windows. An analog second hand was displayed in a third, round window. Pallweber granted the patent to IWC Schaffhausen and Cortébert Watch and the jump hour watch became wildly popular. IWC alone sold 20,000 jump watches.

In 1890, he also invented the first flip clock, a digital clock, which displayed the hour and minutes in two side-by-side square windows.

Pallweber’s other inventions included an “alarm device for portable cassettes and similar containers,” alarmed portable cash boxes, a cash register/adding machine, and a printing full-keyboard adding machine.

Adix Adding Machine Explained – Everything You Need To Know FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is the Adix Adding Machine?

The Adix adding machine was an early mechanical calculator with a click wheel column adder, nine keys, and an exposed system of gears.

How does an Adix Adding Machine work?

The Adix adding machine worked via the depression of keys in three columns of numbers ranging from 0 to 9.

Who invented the Adix Adding Machine?

The Adix adding machine was invented by Josef Benedikt Pallweber as part of the Adix Company with partner Adolf Bordt.

When was the Adix Adding Machine invented?

The Adix adding machine was invented in 1903.

Is the Adix Adding Machine still used?

The Adix adding machine is not used today, but the innovations made by this invention can still be seen in modern-day calculators and keyboards alike. What’s more, because the device was manufactured consistently over a quarter of a century, there are still working antique Adix adding machines in existence out there to discover if you look hard enough.