"I understood writing could be dangerous. I didn't realize the danger came from the machinery"

The history of the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, 1857-1953

Burroughs Adding Machine Company traced its founding to William Seward Burroughs who invented and patented the first workable adding and listing machine in St. Louis, Missouri in 1885.

Yes, the grandfather of William S. Burroughs of Naked Lunch fame.

I remember the first time I saw a Burroughs mahcine in a bank. It was just after reading Naked Lunch for the first time. One of those beautiful moments when the perfectly mundane suddenly becomes the surreal.