Subject areaArtificial intelligence
Also known asRema
The Rema Patent is a pinwheel calculator built by REMA GmbH of Braunschweig, Germany, active from 1914 to around 1927 with the engineers Richard Haase and Hermann Hoffmeister.
Its first patent, from September 1914, covers a pinwheel machine with keyboard entry: numbers are entered by pressing keys instead of turning a lever for each digit.
From 1922 to 1927 Rema effectively merged into Brunsviga, based in the same city, and its models II and III were also sold as Brunsviga MII and MIII; the company was struck off the register in 1927. Its story shows how, among mechanical technologies of intelligence, an innovation born in a small firm ends up in the catalogue of its larger competitor.
Source: Rechnerlexikon e John Wolff's Web Museum (Calculating Machines), citati nella scheda tecnica del modello aggiornata al 09/08/2026; brevetto tedesco DRP 333227 del settembre 1914.
An example
The case below is constructed, because the term does not yet appear in the articles. In a bank in the 1920s the clerk who enters numbers by pressing keys works faster than the one turning a lever for each digit: the keyboard is the step that brings the calculator towards the speed of a typewriter.
Enrico Giubertoni. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may quote, translate and adapt this entry with the author’s name and a link, stating any changes. For commercial use, write to info@enricogiubertoni.com
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