Luigi Torchi was an Italian inventor. He invented the first direct multiplication machine in 1834.
History of Computers and Computing This was also the second key-driven machine in the world, following that of James White in 1822.Roegel, Denis. "Before Torchi and Schwilgué, There Was White." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 38.4 (2016): 92–93.
/ref> Very little is known about the inventor and the machine. It is only known that he was a carpenter; his machine was awarded a gold medal from the Imperial-regio istituto lombardo di scienze, lettere e arti in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

in 1834. A document of the award provides the known details of the machine, while a second document shows a drawing of the machine itself. However, no detailed documents about how it worked are known to exist. The machine was exhibited in Brera between 1834 and 1837; it was later found by Giovanni Schiaparelli in bad condition. Subsequently, no further information about the machine exists.

Bibliography

* Silvio Hénin, ''Two Early Italian Key-Driven Calculators,'' IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 32, no. 1, 2010, pp. 34–43. * Silvio Hénin, ''Early Italian computing machines and their inventors.'' Reflections on the History of Computing. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012. 204–230.

External links

History-Computer.com: Luigi Torchi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Torchi, Luigi 19th-century Italian inventors Italian scientific instrument makers 1810s births Year of death missing