are the position of the display bar (direct versus complement) and the way the first number is entered (direct versus complement). The following table shows all the steps required to compute 54,321-12,345=41,976 Uses Pascalines came in both decimal and non-decimal varieties, both of which can be viewed in museums today. They were designed for use by scientists, accountants and surveyors. The simplest Pascaline had five dials; later variants had up to ten dials. The contemporary French currency system used livres, sols and deniers with 20 sols to a livre and 12 deniers to a sol. Length was measured in toises, pieds, pouces and lignes with 6 pieds to a toise, 12 pouces to a pied and 12 lignes to a pouce. Therefore, the pascaline needed wheels in base 6, 10, 12 and 20. Non-decimal wheels were always located before the decimal part. In an accounting machine (..10,10,20,12), the decimal part counted the number of livres (20 sols), sols (12 deniers) and deniers. In a surveyor's machine (..10,10,6,12,12), the decimal part counted the number of toises (6 pieds), pieds (12 pouces), pouces (12 lignes) and lignes. Scientific machines just had decimal wheels. The decimal part of each machine is highlighted. The metric system was adopted in France on December 10, 1799, by which time Pascal's basic design had inspired other craftsmen, although with a similar lack of commercial success. Production Most of the machines that have survived the centuries are of the accounting type. Seven of them are in European museums, one belongs to the IBM corporation and one is in private hands. Limits to Distribution and Controversies Pascal planned to distribute the Pascaline broadly in order to reduce the workload for people who needed to perform laborious arithmetic. Drawing inspiration from his father, a tax commissioner, Pascal hoped to provide a shortcut to hours of number crunching performed by workers in professions such as mathematics, physics, astronomy, etc. But, because of the intricacies of the device, the relationship Pascal had with craftsmen, and the intellectual property laws he influenced, the production of the Pascaline was far more limited than he had envisioned. Only 20 Pascalines were produced over the 10 years following its creation. Intellectual property In 1649, King Louis XIV of France gave Pascal a royal privilege (a precursor to the patent), which provided the exclusive right to design and manufacture calculating machines in France, allowing the Pascaline to