How did Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s calculating machine work?

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Engraved portrait of Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz with long curly hair, wearing a buttoned coat and cravat, facing forward. — Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, engraving, c. 1701.

The calculating machine designed by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz in 1671 is known as the Step Reckoner.12

While Leibniz was a visionary advocate for the binary number system, his machine did not utilize it. Instead, the device represented numbers in decimal form using positions on 10-position dials. Building upon the earlier work of Blaise Pascal, the Step Reckoner was capable of performing multiplication through a process of repeated addition and shifting.12

Although the machine itself was a mechanical curiosity, its underlying technology proved highly influential; it later served as the foundation for the Arithmometer, which became the first commercially mass-produced calculating device in the 19th century.2