To recap, yesterday’s blog posed two questions: 1. “Which company invented, manufactured and sold the first four-function pocket calculator?” and, 2. “Which company developed and manufactured an extremely popular financial calculator in 1981, which is still widely in use today?”
Under the ‘comments’ section of yesterday’s blog, ‘Stable’ took a shot at the second question and hit the bulls eye – Hewlett-Packard produced the HP-12C, its longest and best-selling calculator. Although it has been improved with modern components, it still looks just as it did when it was introduced in 1981. Congratulations, ‘Stable!’
No one responded to the first question, so…... Bowmar is the company which sold the first four-function, pocket-size electronic calculator in 1971 at an initial price of $240. It was manufactured largely from components purchased from Texas Instruments which, at the time, was not yet a calculator manufacturer. Bowmar went on to become the biggest U.S. seller of pocket calculators. However, emerging competition forced it to file for bankruptcy in 1975. When the company that I then worked for purchased one for me –Bowmar model 901B – the price had dropped to $125.
Here’s another teaser: Which person is generally credited for first developing and manufacturing the most popular line of programmable calculators? The company subsequently became the market leader in the manufacture and sales of distributed word processors. (This is before the PC!)
Hint: This person was born in Shanghai, emigrated to the U.S., worked at Harvard’s Computation Laboratory, and is associated with the invention of the ferrite core memory. This entrepreneur and businessperson was widely admired and respected by his employees and was affectionately known within the company as, “The Doctor.”
Any takers?
Note: Answer in the next blog.
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