In back of the keyboard is an eight-digit display.
The machine has an eight-digit capacity for all operations. On the right are a clearance key, a key for indicating that multiplication (rather than addition) should be carried out, a key for indication that division (rather than subtraction) should be carried out, and a key for multiplication or division. It has an array of nine digit keys with a 0 and a decimal key below these. Sharp QT-8B Micro Compet Electronic Calculator Description This Japanese-made non-printing electronic calculator is a relatively small and light desktop machine. Hence the beginning of a new form of computing device signaled the end of an era. Monroe, one of few American calculating machine companies to make the transition to the electronic era successfully, sold imported devices. The chips in the two former products apparently were made in the United States, with assembly of the calculators in Taiwan.īy the 1980s, Friden, Marchant, and NCR were out of the business of selling calculators. The Unisonic Xl-101 and Lloyd's E680-3 are virtually identical to the Radio Shack EC-2001 just mentioned. The calculator was assembled in Taiwan and sold by the American company Radio Shack.Īt times, the product of one manufacturer was sold by several firms, each placing their own brand name on it. For example, a Radio Shack EC-2001 electronic calculator from the collections has a chip designed by the American firm of Texas Instruments and manufactured in the Philipines. Chips might be designed in one country, fabricated in another, and incorporated into calculators in a third. Calculators built with integrated circuits were quite different. The desktop electronic calculators described in the previous section were generally designed and built within a single country, be it Great Britain, the United States, or Japan. Most of them did not print results, although Unisonic, Texas Instruments, and Canon offered printing calculators. Those listed here were too broad, too deep, or otherwise so designed so that they would not fit easily in the pocket. Some of these, like the MITS 816, clearly were designed to sit on a desktop. With the invention and rapidly decreasing price of integrated circuits, particularly chips, smaller, lighter, cheaper calculators were possible. The bulky electronic calculators built in the 1960s included the circuits required to carry out the arithmetic they performed and the programs they ran.