Wilhelm Schickard (22 April 1592 – 24 October 1635) was a German polymath who built one of the first calculating machines in 1623 twenty years before the Pascaline of Blaise Pascal. Unfortunately a fire destroyed the machine as it was being built in 1624 and Schickard decided to abandon his project. Unknown to the world for more than three centuries it was rediscovered in 1957.