THE

EVOLUTION OF
CALCULATOR

JASON BALMAS
MARINE ENGINEERING
Evolution 05 First All-Transistor Calculator

101 06 First All-Electronic Desktop Calculator

What to Know 07 First Handheld Calculator

08 First Truly Pocket-Sized Electronic

01 History of Calculator Calculator to use LED Display

02 First Adding Machine 09 First Handheld Programmable Calculator

10 First Graphing Calculator

03 First Functional Calculator

04 First Commercially Produced Mechanical 11 First Graphing Calculator with Touch

Functionality
Calculator
 What is the
HISTORY of the
CALCULATOR
There once was a time when written numbers did not exist.
Man had only his fingers and toes to use as counting devices —
and counting sheep and crops using fingers, toes, rocks
and shells will get you only so far.
So human civilization invented the abacus, which the Computer
History Museum suggests is “the oldest continuously used
calculating tool aside from fingers.”
1623: First
Adding Device Name: Calculating Clock

Machine Inventor: Wilhelm Schickard

Schickard’s “Calculating Clock” is composed

of a multiplying device, a mechanism for
recording intermediate results, and a 6-digit
decimal adding device.

Interesting Fact: The letters Schickard

wrote Kepler were written in Latin, the
international language of science and
scholarship in Central and Western Europe
until the 17th century.
1773: First Device Name: Unknown
Functional
Inventor: Philip Matthäus Hahn
Calculator
He based his calculator on the “Stepped
Reckoner” calculating machine that was
developed in 1672. Hahn’s calculator featured a
set of twelve drums in a circular arrangement
that could be activated by a crank located in
the axis of the drums.
Interesting Fact: Although the first
working copy of the device was ready in
1773, the calculator was not demonstrated
until 1778 because of Hahn’s difficulty with
the reliability of machine’s tens-carrying
mechanism
1820: First Commercially Device Name: Arithmometer
Produced Mechanical
Inventor: Charles Xavier Thomas
Calculator
de Colmar

The arithmometer was the first

commercially successful calculating
machine to complete all four basic
operations — addition, subtraction,
multiplication and division — according to
IBM.
Interesting Fact: The production debut of the
Arithmometer in 1851 launched the mechanical
calculator industry. The Arithmometer was the
only type of mechanical calculator commercialized
from 1878 to 1887 worldwide, and was still in use
up to World War I.
1954: First All-
Transistor
Calculator
The IBM 608 was the first calculating
machine to use solid-state transistors
instead of vacuum tubes. The machine was
housed in several large cabinets.

Device Name: IBM 608

Interesting Fact: The IBM 608 contained
more than 3,000 germanium transistors.
Inventor: IBM
1961: First All- Device Name: ANITA MK-8

Electronic Desktop Inventor: Bell Punch

Calculator
The vacuum tube–based calculator was released
in 1961 under the name ANITA MK-8. The machine
featured approximately 170 cold cathode vacuum
tubes, a Dekatron decade counter tube and
Numicator display/indicator tubes.

Interesting Fact: The acronym has been said to

stand for “A New Inspiration to Accounting” or “A
New Inspiration to Arithmetic,” but rumor has it
that it’s also the name of the designer’s wife.
 Device Name: Cal Tech
1967: First Handheld
Inventor: Texas Instruments (TI)
Calculator
“Cal Tech” was the codename used for the
device during its development, which was
released commercially in 1970. The 45-ounce
calculator featured a small keyboard with 18
keys and a visual output that displayed up to 12
decimal digits.

Interesting Fact: The original 1967 prototype of

the device can be found in the Smithsonian
Institution’s National Museum of American
History.
1971: First Truly Device Name: Busicom LE-120A “HANDY”
Pocket-Sized
Inventor: Busicom
Electronic Calculator
to use LED Display
The Busicom LE-120A, known as the
HANDY, is the first handheld calculator to
use a “calculator on a chip” integrated
circuit.

Interesting Fact: According to the Vintage

Calculators Web Museum, Aristotle Onassis,
the Greek shipping magnate, gave the
expensive calculators as gifts to friends.
1974: First
Handheld
Programmable
Calculator
First introduced by Hewlett-Packard as a
“Personal Computer,” the calculator allowed
users to either buy programs on pre-
programmed cards or write programs up to 100
lines long and record them on blank cards.

Interesting Fact: Bill Hewlett specified in the Device Name: HP-65

design requirements that the calculator had
to fit in his shirt pocket — one reason for the
Inventor: Hewlett-Packard
machine’s tapered shape.
 Device Name: Casio fx-7000G
1985: First Graphing
Calculator Inventor: Casio

The Casio fx-7000G was developed with

422 bytes of memory and could store up
to ten programs in 10 program slots. It
offered 82 scientific functions, and its
display could toggle between 8 lines of 16
characters each or a 64x96 dot matrix
graphical display.

Interesting Fact: Today’s graphing

calculators like the TI-83 kept the fx-
7000G’s display format.
2003: First Graphing Device Name: Sharp EL-9650
Calculator with Touch
Functionality Inventor: Sharp

When most people think of touch devices, they

think of using their fingers, but Sharp broke the
mold by debuting the first stylus-based
graphing calculator. Sharp, unfortunately, didn’t
find much success with the model.

Interesting Fact: The EL-9650 had a

slideshow functionality that allowed teachers
to walk through pre-programmed lessons and
formulas on the calculator.
2010: First Color
Graphing Calculator
While the world of mobile devices quickly moved
to full-color screens in the early 2000s, it took a
while for graphing calculators to catch up.
Casio’s PRIZM calculator, with its advanced,
216x384 resolution, full-color display, debuted in
late 2010.

Interesting Fact: The PRIZM allows students

Device Name: Casio PRIZM
to create graphs over images, which helps
them understand the real-world
applications of the work they’re doing on Inventor: Casio
their graphing calculators.