Pascal's calculator is a the
mechanical calculator that
Blaise Pascal invented in the early 17th century. Pascal's invention was called the
arithmetic machine,
Pascal's calculator, and later the
Pascaline. Pascal was led to develop a calculator by the laborious arithmetical calculations required by his father's work as supervisor of taxes in
Rouen. He designed the machine to add and subtract two numbers directly and to perform multiplication and division through repeated addition or subtraction.