An electronic calculator is a calculating "machine" that uses electronic components, such as integrated

circuits, transistors, and resistors to process the numbers that have been entered through a keyboard.
The electronic calculator is usually inexpensive and pocket-sized, using solar cells for its power and having a
gray liquid crystal display (LCD) to show the numbers. Depending on the sophistication, the calculator might
simply perform the basic mathematical functions (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) or might
include scientific functions (square, log, trig). For a slightly higher cost, the calculator will probably include
programmable scientific and business functions.
Either way, the calculator is small, self-powered, and relatively disposable. Yet it was not always that way.
The room-sized Z3 developed by Konrad Zuse and the ENIAC of the mid-twentieth century are considered
the world's first digital computers, but they really were little more than electronic calculators designed to
work through a series of numbers. The fact that these early behemoths had the computing power of today's
$10 student calculator does not lessen their importance to the engineers and scientists of the mid-1940s.
This was a time when people would spend days, weeks, or months calculating formulae using mechanical
adding machines. Or they would use slide rules and preprinted tables to help determine certain scientific
solutions, knowing that the final number was close but not perfectly accurate to the nth degree.
The need for sophisticated and speedy manipulation of numbers was of major importance. It took the birth
and growth of the electronic age for this to happen. Vacuum tubes (valves) allowed the beginning of the
computing age, transistors brought it down to size, and integrated circuits were the catalyst to make
electronic calculators truly possible and accessible to the world. All this happened in the space of thirty
years.
In 1962 British company Sumlock Comptometer designed and sold the first all-electronic calculator, a
desktop model named the Anita (an acronym for A New Inspiration To Arithmetic, as the story goes). This
model used small vacuum tubes as electronic switches. The reliability was not infallible, but it was much
faster than the electromechanical calculators available at the time and very desirable to people who needed
the number-crunching ''computing'' power.
In the early 1960s, Japanese manufacturers were among the first to become interested in electronic
calculators and the first to develop all-transistor devices. Sony showed a prototype at the New York World's
Fair in 1964, and Sharp was the first to sell a production model soon after. Even though it cost the same as a
small car ($2500) at the time, Sharp's CS-10A sold well to those who needed its speed and power. However,
at 25 kg it was not portable.
It was the invention of the integrated circuit, the heart of modern-day computers, that made the most
serious mark in electronic calculators. An integrated circuit can reduce the size of the circuitry in an
electronic device to one hundredth (or more!) of the original size, and offer computing power far greater
than was otherwise possible.
In the late 1960s, calculator companies, particularly Japanese, began to work with American semiconductor
companies who were developing the ability to design and manufacture integrated circuits.
In 1967 one such company, Texas Instruments, had a breakthrough. Their engineers took an electronic
calculator design with hundreds of discrete components (transistors, diodes, relays, capacitors) that covered
the top of a desk and successfully reduced most of the electronics to four small integrated circuits.
Interestingly enough the project, code-named Cal-Tech, was created not to start Texas Instruments' entry
into calculators, but to interest calculator makers in using their integrated circuit products. The integrated
circuit was then a new and unproven product in the world of electronics, and the Cal-Tech was intended to
prove that they were effective. Texas Instruments' effort worked--Canon became very interested in the CalTech and eventually created a similarly designed calculator (the 1970 Pocketronic) with the help of Texas
Instruments' engineers. In the same period, other business machine companies began to develop and
market similar products.
One small Japanese company, Busicom, began to work with a fledgling company called Intel to develop an
integrated circuit to use as the brains for Busicom's 141-PF desktop calculator. Eventually, Intel bought back
the rights to the circuit design. This design, the model 4004 microprocessor, is the grand predecessor to all
of Intel's current Pentium products.
Companies like Bowmar and Summit in the U.S., and Sinclair and Aristo in Europe, would develop very small

pocket-sized models in the early 1970s. Soon after, hundreds of large and small companies worldwide would
develop and sell hand-held calculators, thanks to the availability of inexpensive, calculator-function
integrated circuit chips.
A major milestone occurred in January 1972 when Hewlett Packard (HP) sold the world's first scientific pocket
calculator. This model was in so much demand that even though it cost US$395 (two weeks wages for most
engineers) there was a 6-month backlog to buy one. The HP-35 was so powerful that it rivaled some small
computers and brought computing power directly to the hands of its users. As the years passed in the 1970s
and 1980s, the production cost of integrated circuits (once costing US$100 each) dropped to less than $1.
Calculators which once cost US$300 dropped to $10 or less. By that time, simple models were even
distributed free as inexpensive promotional tools.
At the end of the twentieth century, the electronic calculator was as commonplace as a screwdriver and
helped people deal with all types of mathematics on an everyday basis. Its birth and growth were early steps
on the road to today's world of computing.
Guy D. Ball
Bibliography:
Ball, G. and Flamm, B. Collector's Guide to Pocket Calculators. Wilson/Barnett, Tustin, CA, 1997.
Greenia, M.W. History of Computing: An Encyclopedia of the People and Machines That Made Computer
History. Lexikon Services, Antelope, CA, 2000.
Haddock, T. Personal Computers and Pocket Calculators. Nostalgia Publishing, La Centre, 1993.
How the Computer Got Into Your Pocket. Invention and Technology, Spring 2000.
Johnstone, B. We Were Burning: Japanese Entrepreneurs and the Forging of the Electronic Age. Basic Books,
New York, 1999.
Lukoff, H. From Dits to Bits: A Personal History of the Electronic Computer. Robotic Press, Ontario, 1979.
Reed, T.R. The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip and Launched a Revolution. Random House,
New York, 2001.
Various. Special 15th Anniversary Issue. Electronic Engineering Times, November 16, 1987.

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