1967 - Hand-held Calculator

Links to Calculator Sites

Teaching/Life in 2020

The first TI hand-held calculator

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INVENTS HAND-HELD CALCULATOR IN 1967

While many inventions led up to the hand-held or pocket electronic calculator, Texas Instruments is officially recognized for inventing the first pocket electronic calculator. Prior to their invention, the smallest calculators were desktop calculators with a size similar to an adding machine.

Jack S. Kilby, an engineer at Texas Instruments, had invented the integrated circuit (IC) at TI in 1958. A year earlier a Japanese firm had introduced the first all-transistor desktop calculator; it weighed 55 pounds and cost $2500. Kilby, Jerry D. Merryman and James H. Van Tassel, all engineers at TI, wanted to build an IC-based, battery-powered "miniature calculator" that could add, subtract, multiply and divide, yet could fit in the palm of the hand.

After two years of development, the three TIers completed the first hand-held calculator in 1967. The battery-powered device could accept six-digit numbers, perform the four basic arithmetic functions, and print results as large as 12 digits on a thermal printer. The calculator had a case fashioned from a solid piece of aluminum; it measured about 4-1/4 by 6-1/8 by 1-3/4 inches and weighed 45 ounces.

In 1972, Hewlett Packard introduced the HP-35, the first scientific pocket calculator. I purchased the HP-35 calculator for $135 that year. The last time I checked, it still worked.

LINKS

http://www.webcom.com/calc/applets/felt/welcome.html - An interactive comptometer

http://www.ti.com/calc/docs/news/cg-456.htm - Texas Instruments History of the First Calculator

http://www.dotpoint.com/xnumber/frame_timeline.htm - History of Calculators: Timeline

http://www.hpmuseum.org/hpmuseum.html - The Museum of HP Calculators

In 2020, much instruction will be done electronically. Students will learn about history via virtual reality. They will enter a cubical which will simulate transporting them back to the event of history they are studying. They will be a participant in the event, similar to Back to the Future. They will make decisions which will alter the course of events.  Learning history will finally be fun. Science experiments will be done primarily on the computer using simulation.
 
 

• The first gestation of a fetus in a synthetic womb occurs.
• Many new resources are mined from beneath the ocean.
• Vehicles are powered by hydrogen.
• Solar and wind-powered generators are used extensively.
• Icebergs are used for fresh water supplies.
• A world council governs all nations.
• All surgery is done with lasers aided by computers. Using utensils of the past is considered barbaric.
• Human limbs can be replaced by cloning existing limbs.