In 1878, Ramon Verea, a Spaniard living in New York, invented the first direct multiplying machine. By direct, I refer to one turn of the crank for each figure in the multiplier rather than the previously used repeated additions.

Verea asserted that he did not make the machine to sell the patent or to put it to use, but simply to show that it could be done and that a Spaniard could invent as well as an American.

The machine did not receive much publicity.