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Petetin was born on November 23, 1826. Although not much has been written about his early life, he would most likely have spent all or most of it in Besançon given the limited possibilities of travel at the time.
Petetin’s career choices would inevitably lead him to invent wonderful adding machines that surely inspired other inventors further on. However, he is also known to have been a luthier and a merchant.
This adding machine was large and heavy so it was not meant to be carried from place to place. It was patented in France as №32148 on January 24, 1885.
Despite the Pascaline being introduced to the world nearly 250 years earlier, Petetin’s Poche à Trois Touches now holds the rank of being considered the world’s first true mechanical calculator. It was patented in France as №163925 on April 27, 1884.