[4] It also contains biographical information about some of the people who contributed to the design of these machines, including Blaise Pascal, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and Giovanni Poleni.
[1] At the time Martin wrote the book, "mechanical calculating machines were a symbol of high-tech sophistication in the workplace"; reviewer Jonathan Samuel Golan suggests that it was aimed at collectors rather than historians,[5] while the editors of the Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society suggest that instead its purpose was to inform the public.
[3] Golan writes that the descriptions of older calculating machines are "cursory" and secondhand, while the later ones seem to be copied from advertisements.
[5] Booth praises the quality of the translation, and calls the newly reprinted edition "an invaluable window on the past".
[5] Swade is more cautious, pointing to the book's clear biases, but still noting its value as "reference material for collectors and curators as well as historians".