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POCKET CALCULATOR
Inventors: Sharp and Canon
The first hand-held calculators were
released in 1970 by Sharp and Canon, and they
weighed
around 1.7 lb. The pocket calculators, however, were released by Bowmar in
1971 and it had the four functions (subraction, addition, multiplication,
and division) and an eight-digit red LED display. It went on sale for $240.
Hewlett Packard then came out with the first scientific function calculator
in 1972 (the HP-35) and that invention was then followed by engineering
calculators, programmable calculators, alpha-numeric calculators, and
expandable (with RAMs, ROMs, etc) calculators. Though HP seemed to come out
with all the new and better calculators, Texas Instruments diligently came
out with its own scientific calculators (with the same functions) in
different designs.
The pocket calculator has now become an everyday, taken-for-granted
presence. It is, to define it, a small (relatively, compared to its
predecessors) battery-powered or solar powered electronic digital computer
that is made with integrated circuits and
semiconductor technology. Simpler
ones are limited to 8-10 digits and they have singe-number displays and have
limited mathematic functions that are available—they differ from the
scientific calculators, which are more like general-purpose computers (with
many, many mathematical functions available for the user).
*Pictures from
http://www.etedeschi.ndirect.co.uk/bowmar.jpg and
http://en2.wikipedia.org/upload/6/66/TI85_graphing_calculator.jpg,
respectively
Sources:
Ball, Guy. The History of Pocket Electronic Calculators. 12 Oct 2003.
<http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/7227/timeline.html>
Tedeschi, Enrico. Bowmar. 12 Oct 2003. <http://www.etedeschi.ndirect.co.uk/bowmar.jpg>
Wikipedia. Calculator. 12 Oct 2003. <http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculator>
Wikipedia. TI85 Graphing Calculator.
12 Oct 2003. <http://en2.wikipedia.org/upload/6/66/TI85_graphing_calculator.jpg>
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