René Grillet de Roven, also René Grilliet, was a French mechanic and watchmaker who designed a mechanical calculating machine in the 17th century.
Biography
Grillet came from
Rouen
Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...
in northwestern France, the capital city of
Normandy. He served as watchmaker to
King Louis XIV
Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
.
In 1673 Grillet published a small book, ''Curiositez mathematiques de l'invention du Sr Grillet horlogeur a Paris'', in which he announced the invention of an arithmetical calculating machine. A few years later, in 1678, he wrote a short article in ''
Le Journal des Sçavans'' describing the machine. According to Grillet, he was inspired by
Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic Church, Catholic writer.
He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pa ...
's work with calculating machines to combine the
Pascaline with
Napier's bones, and build a machine that could perform both addition and multiplication.
Grillet displayed his machine at fairs in France and the Netherlands between 1673 and 1681. He tried to establish a business of manufacturing and selling calculating machines, with unclear success.
In addition to the calculating machine, in his career Grillet invented a
hygrometer (for which he was accused of plagiarism by another inventor);
graphometers; drawing instrument set;
protractor,
set square, with
plumb-bob.
In 1690, the first textile-printing factory in England was established by a Frenchman named René Grillet, who took out a patent on the process.
References
*Michael R. Williams ''History of Computing Technology'', IEEE Press 1997 (Kapitel 3.6: René Grillet)
*Michael R. Williams ''From Napier to Lucas. The use of Napier's Bones in calculating instruments'',Annals of the History of Computing, Band 5, Nr. 3, 1983, S. 279-296
External links
Stephan Weiss ''Die Rechenkästen nach Schott und ihre Simulation'', pdf
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grillet De Roven, Rene
French watchmakers (people)
Engineers from Rouen
17th-century births
Year of death missing