Mechanical computer

The most common examples are adding machines and mechanical counters, which use the turning of gears to increment output displays.

Noteworthy are mechanical flight instruments for early spacecraft, which provided their computed output not in the form of digits, but through the displacements of indicator surfaces.

In 2016, NASA announced that its Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments program would use a mechanical computer to operate in the harsh environmental conditions found on Venus.

By 1887, Herman Hollerith had worked out the basis for a mechanical system of recording, compiling and tabulating census facts.

They allowed large volume, sophisticated data-processing tasks to be accomplished before electronic computers were invented and while they were still in their infancy.