DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM |
The Datamath Calculator Museum reflects mainly on products from the US based company Texas Instruments. To round off the exhibition you will find products manufactured by Texas Instruments and sold under different badges, too. Just the same things happens with products developed by other companies and sold by Texas Instruments. Another part of the museum gives an overview of important products in the calculator history influenced by Texas Instruments. If you have additions to the description of the companies please send an email to: joerg@datamath.org.
AccuBalance Corporation was founded in 2003 by Glenn Witherspoon in St. Helena, California with the clear mission to provide relief to millions of bank customers frustrated over the years with frequent checking account register errors and the dreaded end-of-the-month account reconciliation process.
His extensive software development and Information Technology background, coupled with significant start-up and business development experience, provides the leadership and experience necessary to manage the development effort and bring AccuBalance to market.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
APF Electronics, Inc. was founded in 1970 by the brothers Al
& Phil Friedman in Queens, New York to import stereos from Japan to the U.S.,
specifically quadraphonic sets and 8-track player. APF Electronics opened soon a second office in Hong Kong and developed and manufactured portable and desktop electronic calculators in the early Seventies before entering the market of video game consoles in 1976 and computer systems in 1978. The North American video game crash in 1983 caused a major development project canceled and
and APF, then a publicly traded company, filed for bankruptcy.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Aristo
Hamburg
(Germany) located company Dennert & Pape started already in the year 1872
the business with slide rules. About 100 years later they introduced under the
trademark ARISTO with the model M 27 their first electronic pocket calculator.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Ataba
Ataba Co.
(HK) Ltd. was founded in 1991 and is one of the leading manufacturers of
electronic calculators sold under the brand name "Kaiser" or other customer
labels.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Aurora
The Aurora Group was established in Taiwan in 1965 selling office time clocks and expanded eventually into other office automation equipment and office furniture.
Aurora Corp. of America was founded in 1975 and is headquartered in Torrance,
California.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
The Bedol International Group was established in 1999 in Claremont, California to bring creative ideas for your home or office in the form of unique and innovatively designed products. The offerings include a wide array of purses, checkbooks, weather stations, clocks, radios, organizers and calculators.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Best Buy
Best Buy
Co.,Inc. was founded in 1966 by Richard M. Schulz in Saint Paul, Minnesota as an
audio speciality store. In 1983 they started expansion under the new corporate
name "Best Buy Co., Inc." hitting $1 billion revenues in 1992. Today
Best Buy, often called the "big blue box" is the largest retailer for
consumer electronics in the United States and Canada, accounting in 2008 for
more than 20% of the market. In Canada most stores are operated under the Future
Shop label.
In 2008 Best Buy started to release some well-known calculators with the
Texas Instruments brand in unusual colors. e.g. the TI-30X IIS in pink and TI-84
Plus SE in blue.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Bowmar
The Bowmar Instrument Corp. was formed in Fort Wayne in 1951 by Edward and Joan White. He earlier had been head of the electron-mechanical section of the
Farnsworth Television Co. At first a one-employee operation in a barn loft at Smith Field, the company grew to 30 employees by 1953, and by 1957 had expanded
to occupy the site of today's operation on Bluffton Road.
In 1971, the company introduced the first hand-held calculator called the "Bowmar Brain." The technology developed at Bowmar, which included the familiar red
"LED" (Light Emitting Diode) readouts, enabled American business to regain from the Japanese the lead in calculator electronics.
As it turned out, Bowmar lost the calculator in the marketplace because it was unprepared for the huge popularity of the new item. Borrowing heavily to increase
production and determined not to use cheaper foreign labor, Bowmar found itself unable to compete in the calculator price wars of the mid-1970s. In addition, the
Bowmar product was hurt by having to deal with its chief rival, Texas Instruments, for basic components - many of which, it later was learned, were defective or
held up in delivery. Bowmar, like ITT and Magnavox of Fort Wayne, withdrew from the consumer market and has concentrated instead on government and
industrial contracts.
The
company White Electronic Designs Corp.
was formed in 1998 through the merger of Bowmar Instrument Corporation (White
Microelectronics) and Electronic Designs, Inc., inheriting a legacy of sixty
years in electronics manufacturing.
Michael Hawfield, Reprinted by permission from The
News-Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Brinlock Ltd of Caversham, Reading was a British marketing company importing in the 1970s and early 1980s electronic calculators from Far East.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Brother Industries, Ltd. was founded already in 1908 as Yasui Sewing Machine Co, in Nagoya, Japan. Brother International Corporation (US) was established in 1955 as the first overseas sales affiliate,
joined in 1958 by a sales office in Dublin, Ireland. While Brother is today mainly known for their printers and sewing machines and remembered for their typewriters, did they start already in 1966 selling transistorized electronic calculators.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Busicom was the brand name used for calculators made by Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation of Japan, one of the first companies to enter the pocket calculator market. In 1967 the Nippon Calculating Machine Corp changed its name to Business Computer Corporation, better known as Busicom Corp.
That time, Busicom was manufacturing mechanical and electronic desktop calculators, selling Mitsubishi mainframe computers, developing operating systems and application software for Mitsubishi, and importing business computers from France. Busicom calculators were sold in the United States under NCR’s trade name and were also exported to Europe and other parts of Asia.
Busicom had two factories manufacturing calculators – Osaka’s Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation, manufacturing small-business machines in high volume, and Tokyo’s Electro Technical Industries Corporation, manufacturing scientific calculators and specialized office equipment such as billing machines and teller machines. In 1969, shortly after competitor Sharp introduced the QT-8D calculator using Rockwell’s large-scale integration (LSI) chips, Busicom settled on two U.S. semiconductor partners,
Mostek and Intel, and two design strategies. Mostek was contracted to provide the LSI technology for the small-business calculators built in Osaka. Intel was contracted to provide the integrated circuits for the products manufactured in the Tokyo factory. Starting in April 1971, Busicom began the manufacture of calculators and other products based on the Intel chipset, known as the I4004 family. Sales reached
tens of thousands.
Already in 1974 Busicom in Japan became the first major Japanese company in the calculator industry to fail.
William Aspray and Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Cal-Comp
Cal-Comp Electronics, Inc. was established in April 24, 1973 in Taiwan and
started manufacturing and marketing calculators as early as in 1974 under the
Compex brand before venturing into contract manufacturing business. Cal-Comp Electronics (Thailand) was established 1989 by Kinpo
Electronics, Inc. for OEM-production of electronic goods. Main customers are
Canon, Sharp and Texas Instruments. Cal-Comp manufactured between 1989 and about
1998 most LCD calculators in the TI-line.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Canon was founded in 1933 in Tokyo by Goro
Yoshida, a passionate camera-lover, and his brother-in-law, Saburo Uchida. Their aim
was to make cameras that could compete with the German models that were considered the most advanced of the day.
More than 25 years later Canon developed the Synchroreader, a completely new magnetic recording-playback
system and a recording medium based on a magnetic surface and head. Even before its release, it won strong recognition as a new media system
permitting printed matter to be read while listening to played-back sound.
In 1962, Canon seriously considered entering the business machines market. The electrical
engineers who had been working on the development of the Synchroreader were casting around for a new field, and a plan emerged to apply computer
technology to the electro-mechanical calculators around at the time. The
development took two years and in 1964 the prototype received a very positive reception at a
business show and was eventually launched as the Canola 130. Compared with full-key products launched around the same time, the Canola 130 was
easy to use and proved very popular. Unfortunately, Sharp, which exhibited at the same business show, launched a 10-key product immediately after the
show. Canon took time to launch its product, and thus forfeited the honor of marketing the world's first desktop
calculator. Few years later Canon Inc. developed the famous Pocketronic based on
TI's Cal-Tech project and their patents.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Casio
Computer Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan, is one of the leading consumer electronics
companies in the world. Since its establishment in 1957, Casio has been active
not only in the development of electronic calculators but also in electronic
timepieces and musical instruments.
Casio Computer Co., Ltd. was got it start by developing all-electric compact
calculator. Company founder Tadao Kashio, originally an engineer specializing
in fabrication technology, founded Kashio Seisansho in April, 1946 after work
experience that included plants manufacturing products for the military.
Kashio Seisakujo manufactured aircraft parts and other products. Toshio, the
founder's brother suggested that the company work on developing a calculator.
Tadao worked together with his three younger brothers and launched the efforts
aimed at producing a calculator.
Most calculators at that time were electrical devices, in which electrical
power was used to drive internal gears. The four Kashio brothers, however,
adapted the relay elements used for telephone switching equipment to develop
the compact, all-electric calculator. The new calculator did not rely on
mechanical movements such as gears. The launch of the initial Model 14-A was
in June 1957, which also marked the establishment of Casio Computer Co., Ltd..
Since those beginnings, CASIO has continued to be a leader in pioneering new
calculator products for the office, as well as for scientific and technical
applications. The September 1965 release of the transistor-based Model 001
marked the beginning of a new era when calculators became small enough to fit
on the desk top. It was also the time when the term "electronic
calculator" became part of the standard vocabulary. As products became
even smaller, they became a familiar sight in offices throughout the world.
However, calculators were still priced outside the reach of the individual
consumer at this time, so Kazuo Kashio, who was in charge of marketing, made
it a goal of the company to produce a calculator that could be afforded by the
individual consumer. The result came in August 1972 with the release of the
palm-size CASIO Mini, which was promoted by a television commercial that
helped to catch the attention of the public. The CASIO Mini soon took the
market by storm, and made the calculator part of our everyday lives. Only two
years later in May 1974 with the fx-10 the first scientific calculator entered
the market and with the CQ-1 end of 1976 the first calculator with integrated
electronic watch appeared.
The digital technology that was made available through the development of
CASIO calculators was applied to miniaturization, fueling the company's move
into a new sector. In November 1975, CASIO released the Casiotron, a digital
watch capable of displaying the year, month, date, hour, minute, and second.
The Casiotron was even able to automatically make adjustments for months of
different length. The development of the Casiotron was based on the unique
CASIO concept of, "time is a continuous process of addition".
January 1980 saw the release of the Casiotone 201, an electronic musical
instrument that produced sound generated by digital calculation.
Columbia Scientific of Santa Monica, CA sold only
few calculators in the early 1970's. Most of them were assembled in Korea but
based on US technology.
Guy Ball and Bruce Flamm, Collector's Guide to Pocket
Calculators
Commodore was
founded by Jack Tramiel in October 1958 as Commodore Portable Typewriter Co Ltd,
Canada. In four years Commodore went successfully from assembling and
marketing mechanical typewriters and adding machines to their
electromechanical counterparts.
In February 1962 Tramiel changed the company's
name to Commodore Business Machines Ltd.
Impressed by early
electronic calculators Commodore contracted Casio and others to manufacture
calculators for the North American market. The first were introduced in 1968
and sales and profits increased rapidly. The next year they began manufacturing calculators based around chips
made by Texas Instruments, and two years later they introduced the C106, the
first mass-market compact electronic calculator. In 1973 they opened
manufacturing plants in Palo Alto, California, in Virginia, and in Eaglescliff,
UK.
©
http://hammer.prohosting.com/~penz/home.htm
Compal
Electronics was established in 1984 and designs and manufactures electronic products both
in Taiwan and China. In 2002 workforce was about 9000 employees strong. Today
Compal Electronics is part of Kinpo Electronics, Inc. with
factories in Taiwan and China.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Compex
Cal-Comp Electronics sold some of the manufactured OEM
calculators under its own Compex brand.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Compucorp,
a marketing division of Computer Design Corporation roots back to Wyle
Laboratories,
of El Segundo, California. A group of engineers started already mid of the 60s
with the development of a programmable electronic calculator. Nevertheless it
was a very capable machine the management of Wyle Laboratories decided to stop
further development of the machine. A group of engineers started their own
business, the Computer Design Corporation. Without any marketing knowledge or
sales organization the company decided to sell calculator designs instead of
manufacturing calculators. In a first step the engineers started the design of
a flexible calculator architecture based on micro-programmed logic to solve
different calculating applications with one base design. The first
customer of the design was the US company Monroe and a complete series of
high-end calculators appears under the Monroe label using the first-generation
chip set. The main difference between the calculators was the microcode.
Early in the year 1971 the Compucorp division was founded to sell
its own line
of calculators. The first series of Compucorp calculators, the 100-series used
the same chip set as the Monroe products. Some 20 different calculators were
reported within the 100-series. At the same time the design of the
second-generation „ACL“ chip set started and led to the 200-series desktop
calculators and 300-series portable calculators. The „ACL“ chip set was
fabricated by AMD, but later, Texas Instruments was added as a second source.
Both lines of calculators generated again some 30 different calculating
machines with just two base designs. The success of the chip set ended with
the introduction of the high-end 400-series, more a computer system than a
calculator.
Later in the year 1971 the first single chip calculator designs appeared from
both MOSTEK and Texas Instruments. Starting as basic four function calculators
they changed the calculator market dramatically. Within month a lot of
companies like Bowmar, Corvus and even Texas Instruments introduced cheap
pocket calculators with rechargeable batteries. Within two years calculators
like the HP-35 and SR-50 raised the pressure on Computer Design Corporation
and the shut down began. Already in the year 1975 Compucorp was history.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum,
based on the wonderful article
„The
History of Compucorp“ by Rick Bensene.
Cómputo
Numérica of Mexico was the first online store specialized in calculators in
Latin America and has been offering tutorials for the Voyage 200 calculator on
YouTube since 2008.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Corvus
Corvus
Corporation,
the consumer division of the famous IC manufacturer Mostek
Corp.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Craig
Electronics of Compton, California was a major distributor of stereo equipment
and other consumer electronics in the 1960's. Their calculators were usually
US and Japanese OEM-products with the Craig stickers on it.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Teledex Inc was founded in 1990 in New Jersey as a consumer electronics company and sells under the Datexx brand electronic calculatiors, alarm clocks, timers, cooking thermometers and some other products.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Dismac
Dismac Industrial S.A. was founded on January 25, 1973 by the Austrian Joseph Martin Feder on January 25, 1973, in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas.
The goal of the company was to win a slice of the growing Brazilian market for electronic calculators, then dominated by imported products. Within just 10 years, 60% of electronic desk calculators sold in Brazil were the Dismac brand.
In 1979, Dismac became the largest Brazilian exporter of electronic calculators.
Within the Datamath Calculator Museum we feature the unique SR-50 sold in 1974.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Dittel
Walter Dittel GmbH (Landsberg, Germany) was founded in 1959 and introduced its first battery-powered aircraft radio FSG4/59 and added later other products for aviation. Dittel introduced in Summer 1972 with the W200 one of the first battery-powered electronic calculators
manufactured in West Germany. The W200 started a successful line of electronic calculators sold under various names, including
MBO. Dittel stopped manufacturing calculators already in 1974 due to the rapid decline of retail prices for pocket calculators.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Enterprex International Corporation was founded in 1973 in California, U.S. to import and market
consumer electronic products like calculators, video game systems and portable
radios from Asia to the United States.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
A.W.
Faber-Castell, a German manufacturer of slide rules, introduced in the year
1973 the „TR1 Calculator Slide Rule“. One side of the housing featured an
electronic calculator and the other side a traditional slide rule.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Franklin
Quest Co., the world leader in time management training seminars and maker of
the Franklin Day Planner® system,
released in 1994 a special version of the PS-9500 Organizer.
FranklinCovey, based in West Valley City, Utah, was formed on May 30, 1997 as a
result of an acquisition by Franklin Quest of Stephen R. Covey's Covey
Leadership Center.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Fred Meyer, Inc. is a chain of hypermarkets founded in 1922 in Portland, Oregon by Fred G. Meyer. In May 1999 Fred Meyer, Inc. merged with Kroger of Cincinnati, Ohio but the stores are still branded Fred Meyer.
In 2009 Fred Meyer started to release some well-known calculators with the Texas Instruments brand in unusual colors and introduced the TI-84 Plus Silver Edition and TI-30XIIS in maroon and pink.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• fred's
Tracing its history back to an original store in Coldwater, Mississippi, opened
in 1947, today fred's is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, and operates over
700 discount general merchandise stores, including 20 franchised fred's stores,
mainly across the southeastern States..
In 2014 fred's sold an almost perfect
clone of the TI-30X IIS.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Garrett Comtronics Corporation
of San Diego, CA was a subsidiary of the Garrett Corporation, one of the Signal Companies.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Goulds
Goulds Pumps boasts a proud tradition of supplying quality pumping
products to the global industrial markets for over 150 years. Goulds is the dominant brand worldwide with over a million installed process
pumps in service.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Group
Sense (International) Limited was established in Hong Kong. Group Sense designs
and manufactures a wide range of information and educational products
including electronic personal Chinese dictionaries, electronic multi-lingual
translators, LCD hand-held games, electronic personal organizers, computer
products, and educational toys. In 1998 Nam Tai Electronics,
Inc. bought 20% of the company shares.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Hand
Held Products was founded in1972 and manufactured memory expansion modules for
both Hewlett Packard and Texas Instruments.
Since then HHP grew to the leading provider of data collection systems for
mobile and wireless applications. In 2000 HHP was merged with Welch Allyn, a
leader and innovator in medical and dental diagnostics.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Handy
Tech Elektronik GmbH, Horb (Germany) was founded in 1994 by Mr. Siegfried Kipke
and traces back to Schoenherr GmbH founded already in
1974. The product range includes classic Braille displays, modular Braille
displays, talking blood pressure gauges, talking calculators, and the
distribution of reading systems and CCTVs. In 2001 the company employs 42
people, about a third of them are blind or visually impaired.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Heathkit
Around the year 1900
Ed Heath founded the Heath Aeroplane Company and developed light planes.
Starting 1926 the first kit – an airplane – was available. Ed Heath was
killed 1931 during a test flight and the bankrupt Heath company was purchased
by Howard Anthony. After WWII Heath company started selling surplus
electronics and Anthony began to explore the idea of offering test equipment
in kit form - an idea he had thought about years earlier. He subcontracted the
scope's design, scribbles a few simple instructions on how to assemble it, and
buys an ad in the August 1947 issue of Electronics magazine. Over the years
Heath developed and sold hundreds of kit products.
In the year 1972
Heathkit introduced with the IC-2008 their first electronic calculator in kit
form. Some more products followed but early far-east calculators dropped the
selling prices below manufacturing costs.
For almost 30 years
Heathkit could do no wrong. But by the mid 70's the weight of change was
beginning to press on Heath with increasing discomfort. Technology was
beginning to cycle so quickly Heath could hardly keep up. Halfway through a
project, for example, Heath could find itself working on a outmoded idea. And
as if that weren't enough, off-shore manufacturers were becoming seriously
competitive. Then, in 1979, Zenith bought Heath. What at first glance appeared
to be a great relationship quickly turned catastrophic. Zenith was interested
only in Heath's computer products and began to siphon off huge quantities of
cash and other resources to pursue its own agenda. Then came the layoffs and a
deadly plunge in morale. In addition to the internal problems, there were
major shifts going on outside. Heath's original customer base was aging, and
younger folks seemed to have neither the time or inclination to assemble kits.
The age of instant gratification had arrived. All of these forces--and
others--conspired to submerged Heath below crush-depth.
Joerg Woerner based on an article from Chuck Penson.
• Helec (Hunte Electronic)
Hunte Electronic, Huntlosen near Bremen (Germany) was founded in 1970 by Mr. Fritz Troemel to manufacture power supplies for Nordmende, then a major consumer electronics brand for high quality televisions and radios. Helec, short for Hunte Electronic, manufactured mid of 1972 one of the first battery-powered electronic calculators in West Germany and caught the attention of Quelle. The tip-in GT 530
and the Privileg variations manufactured for Quelle were very successful, Hunte Electronic's revenue increased six-fold between 1971 and 1972 and we estimate that they manufactured around 10,000 to 20,000 calculators per year. Hunte Electronic stopped manufacturing calculators already in 1974 due to the rapid decline of retail prices for pocket calculators.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Bill
Hewlett and Dave Packard founded the well known company Hewlett-Packard or HP
already in the year 1939 and started with an audio oscillator for test and
measurement purposes. In the year 1968 HP introduces the world's first desktop
scientific calculator, the HP 9100A. In the same year they developed the first
commercially available light-emitting diode (LED) found in the later electronic
pocket calculators. Only 4 years later, spring 1972, HP makes another advance in
personal computing with the HP-35, the world's first scientific handheld
calculator. Today HP products are still known for their innovation and quality.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Híradástechnika
of Budapest, Hungary sold in the Seventies various OEM calculators under their
own brand. The PTK-1050 was actually a rebadged TI-57 Programmable while the
PTK-1096 resembled the TI-59 Programmable.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Ibico
Ibico AG
was founded on October 29, 1969 in Zurich, Switzerland to manufacture and
distribute electronic products like office machines. The company was liquidated
on January 30, 2004.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• IMA (International Merchandising Associates)
IMA-Hong Kong, LTD., the Asia subsidiary of Spectra Merchandising International Inc. based in Chcago, IL started developing and manufacturing electronic consumer products already
in 1981. Spectra and IMA are owned privately by Patricia Schoenberg who, through her lifelong career in the consumer electronics business, has molded Spectra and IMA into companies who design, develop, manufacture and distribute products worldwide.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Industrial
Development Engineering Associates (I.D.E.A.) of Indianapolis, Indiana and Texas
Instruments worked in 1954 together to manufacture with
the Regency TR-1 the first commercial available miniaturized transistor radio. I.D.E.A. formally changed its name to Regency in 1961.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Indústrias
Gerais da Amazonia manufactured in the Manaus Free Zone different calculators
like the rare SR-40 LCD under license of Texas Instruments. Due to various
barriers to trade most foreign companies established in Brazil some kind of
off-shore production. Already in 1957 by parliamentary initiative the "Zona
France de Manaus" was created in the Municipality of Manaus, State of Amazonas: the Geographic Center of the Western Brazilian Amazon. Grounded on federal, state and municipal fiscal incentives, the project included the creation of an industrial, commercial and agricultural and cattle raising center.
Today there are more than 600 industries, using competitive technology in the production of electro-electronic, computer science, professional equipment, photocopiers, telephone receivers, fax, and
telecommunications used all over Brazil.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Inventec
Corporation - formerly known as Inventa Electronics
Corporation - was founded in Taiwan,
on July 1, 1975 to produce simple calculators
and telephone sets. In 1984
Inventec was Taiwan's largest manufacturer of calculators. In the year
1986 an overseas manufacturing base was founded in Penang, Malaysia to take
advantage of competitive labor rates. Inventec Micro-Electronics Corporation
(IMC), one of the Inventec Group companies, established a factory in Shanghai,
China during 1995. Inventec manufactures most of Texas Instrument’s
graphing calculators from the TI-73 to the TI-89 and the data collection systems
CBL2 and CBR. IMC was renamed IME after Inventec group's reorganization in 1999.
In 2004, Inventec Group further expanded in China by establishing Inventec
Pudong Campus in Shanghai Caohejing Export Processing Zone with a total
investment exceeding US$ 420 million. The Campus will eventually house one
R&D Center, one logistics center and eight factories. The Pudong Campus
serves not only the domestic market in China, but also the worldwide market.
Since 2019 production of the TI-Nspire CX was moved from China to Malaysia as a
result of the China-United States trade war.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
JCE (John
Colling Enterprises) located in Palo Alto, CA developed and manufactured only
few portable electronic calculators around 1972. All known models (JCE Mark II,
Percent, Super D) use the famous Texas Instruments Klixon™ keypad and sport
huge 8-digit LED displays. JCE went out of the calculator business some time in
1973 to 1974.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
J.C.
Penney Company, Inc. began in 1902 when James Cash Penney opened his first
retail store, called the Golden Rule Store, in the mining town of Kemmerer,
Wyoming. Today the company consist of approximately 1,075 JCPenney Department
stores in all 50 U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. In the 70's JCPenney sold
rebadged calculators manufactured by APF, Commodore,
Corvus
and some Japanese brands through their catalogues.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Jeppesen Sanderson Inc. offers a complete selection of flight information and flight
planning services, aviation weather services, maintenance information, pilot training
systems and pilot supplies. Some of their flight computers
were based on calculators manufactured by Texas Instruments. On Aug. 15, 2000
the Boeing Company had announced that it agreed to acquire Jeppesen Sanderson, Inc., the world's leading provider of flight information services, from Tribune Company for $1.5 billion in cash.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Karce
Karce was established in 1991 as a high-quality consumer electronic products manufacturing facility. Since then, Karce has established itself as a valuable and reliable supplier to many worldwide branded customers by providing high quality and cost competitive products and services.
With Headquarter in Hong Kong and advanced manufacturing facilities in mainland China, Karce currently has approximately 6,500 employees, including around 200 professional engineer in R&D team in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Karce currently produces over 3 million units of electronic calculators/organizers and not less than 200,000 units of other OEM products per month
(as of March 2020).
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Kinpo
Electronics, Inc. started business already in 1973 and established itself as a
front runner in Taiwan's electronics industry. The product lines cover the 3C
consumer products (Calculators, Cordless and Computers) and most of the
customers are well known: Texas Instruments, Hewlett Packard, Casio, Canon and
Citizen.
In 2002 Kinpo had a staff of more than 10,000 employees worldwide with R&D
centers in Taiwan, Shanghai and Beijing, mass production facilities in Dongguan,
and manufacturing supports in Thailand. In 1996, Kinpo began to set up
production facilities in Dongguan, China and, since then, has expanded its
operations to Shanghai and Beijing. The Chang An factory in Dongguan is Kinpo's
major manufacturing with 4,000 employees assembling products such as
calculators, electronic dictionaries, global positioning systems, and digital
cameras.
Kinpo established Cal-Comp
Electronics (Thailand) in 1989 to take advantage of local highly skilled work
force. Cal-Comp has six manufacturing plants designed and built to cater to
product features. There are more than 30 SMT product lines in total. Computer
aided manufacturing facilities are installed to upgrade product quality and
reduce costs. Kinpo Thailand employs more than 6,000 employees working on about
one hundred assembly lines.
Another member in the Kinpo Conglomerate is Taiwan based
Compal
Electronics, Inc. with a workforce of about 9,000
employees (2002 numbers). Compal manufactures its products at two locations:
Ping-chen Factory in Taiwan and Kunshan Factory in China
Since 2015 we
noticed TI calculators manufactured in their Batangas facility in the
Philippines.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Kmart
Kmart Corporation, doing business as Kmart, is an American big box department store chain headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was incorporated in 1899 as S. S. Kresge Corporation and renamed to Kmart Corporation in 1977.
Kmart introduced in or around 1984 a calculator line branded KMC for KMart Corporation.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Koh-i-Noor
Hardtmuth - a manufacturer of pencils, pens and art supplies - was founded in 1790 by Joseph Hardtmuth of Austria and named after the
famous Indian diamond Koh-I-Noor. The company was moved in 1848 to Budweis, a
Bohemian town which belongs now to the Czech Republic. Koh-I-Noor Hardtmuth
introduced in 1977 very interesting design variations of the TI-30, TI-1050 and TI-1265.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Kosmos
Kosmos
International, Inc. located in Atlanta, Georgia introduced the first hand-held
biorhythm computer and the world's first hand-held astrological computer. Their
products based on calculator chips manufactured by Texas Instruments.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Kovac Corporation of Osaka, Japan, started already in 1972 with the Model K80 manufacturing of battery-operated electronic calculators. Most of Kovac's later products were sold not only under the Kovac brand, but made their way as OEM products into the distribution channels of Craig,
Homeland, Prinztronic, Rambler, Unitrans, Ventron and others. Most of Kovac's
designs are based on Texas Instruments' early single-chip calculator circuits,
including the TMS0600 and TMS0800 Product Family used with the uniquely designed
Beetle series.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Leo Electronics Co., Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer of electronic equipment
established early in the 1990's production in Shenzhen, China. At March 1st, 1996
Toshiba Corporation announced to take a majority holding in
this plant and we assume that some Texas Instruments calculators were
manufactured there.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Litronix
Litronix,
Inc., (Cupertino, CA) was an early light-emitting diode (LED) company that
became a leading supplier of displays for handheld calculators and digital
watches (e.g. the Hamilton Pulsar line).
Litronix Malaysia Sdn Bhd located in Penang was established in March 1972 with
7-segment light-emitting diode (LED) displays as initial products. Within a few
years, the company expanded its product base into LED related consumer products
such as LED watches, calculators and LED games. By 1981, Litronix Malaysia was
purchased by Siemens in 1976. Today, the plant produces optoelectronic couplers,
displays and intelligent displays and custom designed optoelectronic devices.
Siemens Penang now has a workforce of 1,200 employees on premises with a total
area of 15,330 square meters.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Litton
Litton started in 1953 as an electronics company building navigation, communications and electronic warfare equipment.
During the 1960s, the company began acquiring many unrelated firms and became
one of the largest conglomerates in the United States. At its peak, in addition
to many defense related companies, it also owned Monroe
Calculator Company, Royal Typewriters and
Triumph-Adler.
Like many conglomerates, the company suffered significant declines in the 1970s, selling off many of its unrelated brands and had largely returned to its defense roots by the 1980s. The company continued to shrink after the ending of the cold war and by the late 1990s was a corporate takeover target. The company was purchased by Northrop Grumman in 2001.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Lloyd's
Lloyd Trade Company, Los Angeles, CA started in 1959 selling stereo systems and tape recorders under the Lloyd's brand. The company was renamed in 1972 to Lloyd's Electronics, Inc.
and relocated to Compton, CA. Lloyd's sold their first desktop calculators
manufactured by North American Rockwell Corporation in 1972 and started their
own development of battery operated handheld calculators in 1973, with
manufacturing located originally in Japan and later expanded in Taiwan. Rockwell acquired
Lloyd's in 1974 and consequently began to phase-out their branding.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
"At the time the famous Texas Instruments Datamath
calculators appeared on the market, Longines Symphonette was primarily selling
music - boxed set treasuries - Frank Sinatra, Mozart, etc.
However, they viewed themselves as a direct marketing company, as well, and also
produced a catalog that featured a number of hard goods products including a
calculator."
Jeff Kobil, former employee of Longines Symphonette
There are three different calculators sold by
Longines Symphonette reported, the LTP5405 based on Bowmar technology and two
"Electronic Calculator" models based on Texas Instruments technology.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Melcor
Electronics Corporation of Farmingdale, New York (USA) was one of the first US
companies to enter the pocket calculator business. Like Bowmar, they were known
for quality products but only made calculators for a few years.
Guy Ball and Bruce Flamm, Collector's Guide to Pocket
Calculators
Panasonic Corporation, formerly known as the Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb socket manufacturer, is a major Japanese multinational electronics company, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka.
Early in the Seventies Olympia partnered with Matsushita (Panasonic) to stay competitive on the difficult market of electronic calculators before operations were ceased in 1991.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Mesbla S.A. was a chain of Brazilian department stores that began operations in 1912 as a subsidiary of Mestre
& Blatgé, based in Paris and specialized in the
trading of machinery and equipment. Mesbla S.A. sold in Brazil a very colorful edition of the Texas Instruments TI-1786, years before the company had its bankruptcy declared in 1999 .
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• MBO
MBO (Muenchner Buero Organisation) was founded in 1966 by Peter Schmidt and Lorenz Niederleitner and is registered since July 1st, 1967 as MBO Schmidt
& Niederleitner GmbH & Co. KG in Deisenhofen near Munich.
Within just 10 years MBO advanced in Germany to the leader of the still young market of electronic calculators and watches with a turnover of 125 million German Mark. JENOPTIK AG - a
German Hightech company - purchased
MBO in September 1994 and distributes calculators and other office products
still under the MBO label.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Meijer
Meijer’s was founded in 1934 by Dutch immigrant Hendrik Meijer as a supermarket in Greenville, MI. Meijer pioneered the American supercenter concept and runs today more than 180 stores, most of them in Michigan.
In 2009 Meijer started to release some well-known calculators with the Texas Instruments brand in unusual colors and introduced the TI-30XIIS in orange and dark blue.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Micro Cooking Aides, Inc. of Lubbock, TX introduced in 1981 with the MicroManager an innovative Microwave Cooking Aid based on Texas Instruments' TI-35 slimline scientific calculator design. Both the street address of the now defunct company, office building size and reference numbers found in the user manuals suggest that the company was founded and operated by one or more Texas Instruments employees.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Frank Stephen
Baldwin, 1838-1925, American inventor, began in 1870 to experiment with the
design of mechanical calculators. The device was patented and marketed in
1875. The improved 1875 machine initiated the development of the second
fundamental principle in rotary four-rules calculators which became known as
"The Baldwin Principle." Baldwin
developed many more calculators during his life. His last model was the
forerunner of the Monroe machine. The Monroe Calculator was used extensively
in the 1930's. The Monroe Calculator Company was formed in 1912 and was a
pioneer in electric adding machines. In the 1970‘s most Monroe – a
subsidiary of Litton Inc. - calculators were OEM-products manufactured by Canon
or Compucorp (Computer Design Corporation of Los Angeles, California ). Monroe
Calculators are still sold today through Monroe Systems for Business.
Joerg
Woerner based on an article from Reece Franklin, Computer News of San Diego.
American department store which also sold
calculators through a general merchandise catalog. Montgomery Ward labels were
usually placed on calculators already made by other companies.
Guy Ball and Bruce Flamm, Collector's Guide to Pocket
Calculators
Yes, they placed their labels on a lot of different calculators produced by either APF, Lloyd's, Novus or Texas Instruments. Within the Datamath Calculator Museum we'll focus only on the TXI-prefixed models.
Montgomery Ward to close all stores
CHICAGO — Montgomery Ward Inc., the department store chain that helped pioneer
American retailing, said Thursday that it is shutting down after more than 125 years in
business and will file for bankruptcy.
The chain — with 250 stores and 37,000 employees in 31 states — fell victim to
competition from other big retailers.
"Sadly, today's action is unavoidable," chief executive Roger Goddu said, citing weak
holiday sales as the final straw for a struggling company that emerged from Chapter 11
bankruptcy protection just last year.
The statement came hours after scores of Montgomery Ward employees began filing out
of the company headquarters with boxes in hand.
Several said they had been told during a meeting that General Electric Co.'s GE Capital
Unit, owner of Montgomery Ward, was pulling financial support after sluggish holiday
sales. GE Capital referred all calls to Ward headquarters in Chicago.
"I'm just devastated," said Anece Rich, a 28-year employee who worked in the mail
room. "They took care of us as best they could."
Begun in 1872, Ward pioneered mail-order catalogs when it came out with a single sheet
of dry-good items for sale. It was the first U.S. mail-order house to sell general
merchandise. Sears, Roebuck & Co. was not founded until 1886 and did not put out its
first general merchandise catalog until a decade after that.
Ward — known affectionately to its customers as Monkey Ward — opened its first
store in Plymouth, Ind., in 1926.
Ward has been financially unstable for years. In 1999, it emerged from bankruptcy and
announced a plan to revamp many of its stores. But some analysts said it was too little too late.
"Wards has not established themselves as anything distinctive in the marketplace," said
George Whalin, president of California-based Retail Management Consultants.
"There's just no reason to go there — unless maybe they're the closest store to your house."
Whalin said it had become increasingly difficult for Ward to survive in a market
swamped with competitors like Home Depot, Best Buy and Target.
News of Ward's apparent demise comes two days after Massachusetts-based discount
chain Bradlees Inc. announced it is going out of business.
"It's brutal. It's as competitive as anything out there," Whalin said.
Wards had been shooting for sales growth this year of about 9
percent. Instead, it
hovered at a sluggish 2 percent.
Martha Irvine, Associated Press
(December 29, 2000)
In August 1974, a group of eight engineers and marketers, including Bill
Mensch and Chuck Peddle, left Motorola to work for MOS Technology Inc., Pennsylvania. MOS Technology was, at the time, the world's largest
manufacturer of calculator chips, and it decided to move up to microprocessors. Commodore International, the main client of
4-function-chips for pocket calculators by MOS Technology, bought the company the other day in October 1976, although Commodore was in financial
troubles itself. The later 8-bit microprocessor MOS6502 started in October 1977 a revolution with the PET2001 (Personal Electronic Transactor), the
best selling "Personal Computer".
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Mostek was founded in 1969 as a spin-off of Texas Instruments engaged in the
manufacturing and marketing of Metal Oxide Semiconductors and Large Scale Integration (MOS/LSI) integrated circuits. Already in May, 1970 Mostek started the development of the MK6010, the world's first "single-chip" calculator circuit for for Nippon Calculating Machine Company, better known under the brand Busicom. The MK6010 – introduced January, 1971 - was used in
Busicom's first handheld model, the Handy LE-120. Sold in 1971, it was the world's smallest handheld calculator for at least a year. Production volume of the MK6010 was 60.000 pieces. Not only did Mostek attract the attention of the electronic community, but they also attracted the attention of major consumers of MOS circuits and the company began an important relationship with Hewlett-Packard as the major supplier of integrated circuits for
H-P's scientific calculators. Hewlett-Packard soon became Mostek's largest customer.
Mostek merged with United Technologies in 1979.
Mary Hall and Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Nam
Tai Electronics, Inc. was founded in 1975 and was a major participant in the sale of consumer
electronics products in China through the mid 1970s and early 1980s. The Company
established manufacturing facilities in Hong Kong in 1978, expanded these
facilities into China in 1980, and subsequently moved to Shenzhen, China in 1987
to take advantage of lower overhead costs and competitive labor rates. Since
that time it has concentrated on the manufacture of electronics products for its
OEM customers.
The Company manufactures a wide range of electronic calculators with a variety
of features. These include calculators designed for different uses, including
graphic and scientific calculators, mini card, scientific, desk top, hand held,
graphical and printer calculators. In 1998 Nam Tai bought 20% of the shares of
Group
Sense (International) Limited.In 1999 Nam Tai received the Supplier
Excellence Award from Texas Instrument for the fourth consecutive year.
Nam Tai is registered in the British Virgin Islands and maintains offices in
Hong Kong and Vancouver, Canada.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
National
Semiconductor was founded May 27, 1959 in Danbury, Connecticut, by eight
former engineers of Sperry Rand Corporation. The company started with simple
transistors for military accounts and started selling integrated circuits in
the year 1962 for the Mariner Venus flight.
The semiconductor industry grew up in the 1970s as electronics technology
rapidly shifted to consumer applications. National Semiconductor grew rapidly,
opening manufacturing sites around the World, and became world-renowned for its
technology. At the same time, the company
Specialized Electronics Corporation
(SEC) was a Illinois based company developing high sophisticated Flight
Computers during the 1970's.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
New
Specialties, Inc. was a Georgia based company developing the specialized
Apothecalc
Computer during 1987.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Office
Depot is one of the world's leading suppliers of office products for small to
large businesses located all over the world.
In 2007 Office Depot started to release some well-known calculators with the
Texas Instruments brand in unusual colors. e.g. the TI-30X IIS in pink and TI-84
Plus SE in teal.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Office Max
was founded in 1988 and is the third-largest office supplies retailer in the USA
behind Staples and Office Depot.
In 2008 Office Max sold the Texas Instruments TI-84 Plus Silver Edition in a
very unusual retail color named Raspberry Sorbet. Office Depot and Office Max
merged in November 2013 but still retain as of August 2020 their individual
brands.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Olympia Werke was founded in 1903 in Germany to develop and manufacture typewriters - please remember the famous "Mignon".
Early in the Seventies Olympia partnered with
Matsushita
(Panasonic) to stay competitive on the difficult market of electronic calculators before operations were ceased in 1991.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Panasonic Corporation, formerly known as the
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb socket manufacturer, is a major Japanese multinational electronics company, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka.
Early in the Seventies Olympia partnered with Matsushita (Panasonic) to stay competitive on the difficult market of electronic calculators before operations were ceased in 1991.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
OPTREX
Corporation was founded July, 1976 in Tokyo. They started immediately the
production of Lyquid Crystal Displays (LCD) for calculator applications. Already
in the year 1979 supplying in large volume of LCDs for Texas Instruments started.
In the year 2000 a production facility for LCDs was established in Thailand.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Orbit Research develops and manufactures innovative and affordable products that enable an independent lifestyle for people who are blind or visually impaired. Founded with the mission to fulfill the urgent need for affordable
assistive technology products, the company has introduced breakthrough products like the Orion Talking Scientific Calculators
based on the TI-34, TI-36X SOLAR, TI-84 Plus, and TI-84 Plus.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Privileg
The label Privileg was placed
by Quelle, the
largest warehouse in Germany selling through a catalog, on calculators
manufactured
by other companies.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Up to now there is only one of the hundreds Privileg calculators reported to be manufactured by Texas Instruments.
Radio Shack (a Tandy corporation
company) is a
large US based store chain selling electronic products and parts. Similar to the
other catalog distributors they sold and still sell calculators produced by
other companies.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Some of the early calculators sold by Radio Shack were produced by Texas Instruments. Nevertheless you'll find in the Datamath Calculator Museum some interesting products without any relationship to Texas Instruments. But they are from some evidence in the history of electronic calculators.
Rapid Data
Systems & Equipment Ltd. is one of the few Canadian based companies
producing portable electronic calculators.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Reactor
The brand Reactor was used by a Dutch department store called HEMA, part of the Bijenkorf
group.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Regency
Regency Electronics Inc. was founded in 1945 by former RCA employees Joe Weaver and John Piers in Indianapolis, Indiana as I.D.E.A., Industrial Development Engineering Associates. Through the 1940s and 1950s the company moved from competing directly in the radio and TV business, to focusing on specialty products that derived from these markets, such as UHF police radio, signal and voltage boosters, and famously, the first commercialized transistor radio in the world in collaboration with Texas Instruments, the Regency TR-1 of 1954. I.D.E.A. formally changed its name to Regency in 1961.
The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments, Harvard University
• RFT
The
RFT-Kombinat of the former GDR (German Democratic Republic) produced already in
1973 the first electronic calculators. Most of the early calculators based on
designs introduced by Texas Instruments or Toshiba. Later products were
OEM-products from Japan suppliers.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Rockwell
North-American
Rockwell Microelectronics Corporation based in Anaheim, California, USA was
contracted in 1968 by Sharp Electronics of Japan to develop the four Integrated
Circuits for the QT-8D desktop calculator. By 1970 Rockwell was the largest
manufacturer of MOS/LSI (Large Scale Integration) chips and acquired in 1972
Unicom, a business unit of competitor American Microsystems, Inc. (AMI) to
market electronic calculators. Rockwell manufactured calculators starting in
1972 for Lloyd’s, Rapid Data and Sears Roebuck, early in 1974 under the Unicom
brand and later in 1974 under the Rockwell brand. Rockwell quit the calculator
manufacturing business in 1977 and focused on aviation and industrial automation
business. Rockwell Semiconductor was spun-off from Rockwell in 1999 and is known
today as Conexant Systems Inc., Newport Beach, California.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• R.ohm
R.ohm was established as Toyo Electronics Industry in Kyoto in 1958 as initially a manufacturer of small electronic components. In 1967 production was expanded to include transistors and diodes, and in 1969 ICs and other semiconductor products were added to the lineup. Two years later (in 1971), going against conventional Japanese business culture, the company entered the US market by establishing a sales office and IC design center in Silicon Valley. R.ohm started in 1973 the development of LEDs and network resistors with a focus on portable electronic calculators and added in 1974 Thermal printheads to its portfolio.
In 1973 the corporate trademark was changed from R.ohm to ROHM and in 1981 the registered company name was changed from Toyo Electronics Industry Corporation to ROHM Co., Ltd.
ROHM and Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Royal
Royal Typewriter Company was founded in 1904 in Brooklyn, New York and merged with McBee, a leading manufacturer of accounting and statistical machines in 1954. In March 1965,
Litton Industries acquired Royal McBee, adding British Imperial in 1966 and German
Triumph-Adler in 1969.
In 1979, Volkswagen acquired a major stake of Triumph-Adler and Royal Typewriter, selling it in 1986 to Olivetti. In September 2004, Royal became a private American company again and is today known as Royal Consumer Information Products Inc.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Santron
More to come.
• Sanyo
SANYO Electric Works, Moriguchi City, Osaka was founded in 1947. Three years later SANYO Electric Co., Ltd. was established and becomes Japan's top manufacturer of bicycle generator lamps. Other products of the 50‘s include plastic radios, washing machines, and electric heaters. In 1964 the Cadnica line of rechargeable nickel-cadmium batteries made possible the start of the cordless era in
electric products. In 1971 Sanyo used these batteries with the portable but heavy desktop calculator ICC-0081 and followed with a complete line of smaller products intended for office use.
Today SANYO products are directly managed by five internal companies, a Business Development Headquarters and many affiliated companies: Multimedia Company, Home Appliances Company, Commercial Equipment Systems Company, Semiconductor Company, and Soft Energy Company.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Schoenherr
GmbH, Horb (Germany) was founded in 1974 by Mr. Schoenherr. He invented in 1975
the world’s first Braille element that could display and erase Braille
characters. This patented invention was the prerequisite for developing Braille
displays which enabled access to the world of computers for the blind. In 1980
Mr. Schoenherr was awarded with the Louis-Braille-Prize and Schoenherr GmbH
introduced with the Braillotron TI-30, the first electronic calculator using a
refreshable Braille cell for output. In 1981 he was killed in an accident and
two years later the company was taken over by the "Deutsche
Blindenstudienanstalt", a non-profit-organization in Marburg as EHG GmbH
and was the production site for Braille displays. Since 1994 the company
re-firmed as EHG Handy Tech Elektronik GmbH.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Sears
Richard
Sears started in 1886 selling watches to supplement his income as station agent
at North Redwood, Minnesota. Sears settled already one year later the
company's first Chicago location and it took another year until he published the
first catalog featuring watches and jewelry. In 1893 the corporate name becomes
Sears, Roebuck and Co., still a well know name. Today Sears, Roebuck and Co. is
a broadline retailer with significant service businesses. In 2002, the Sears
revenue was $41.4 billion added from approximately 870 full-line stores, a
variety of specialty catalogs and through its Web sites,
www.sears.com
and www.landsend.com.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• SEDASA
SEDASA Sistemas Eletro-Eletrônicos da Amazônia S/A manufactured in the Manaus Free Zone different calculators
like the rare TI-1786 under license of Texas Instruments. Due to various
barriers to trade most foreign companies established in Brazil some kind of
off-shore production. Already in 1957 by parliamentary initiative the "Zona
France de Manaus" was created in the Municipality of Manaus, State of Amazonas: the Geographic Center of the Western Brazilian Amazon. Grounded on federal, state and municipal fiscal incentives, the project included the creation of an industrial, commercial and agricultural and cattle raising center.
Today there are more than 600 industries, using competitive technology in the production of electro-electronic, computer science, professional equipment, photocopiers, telephone receivers, fax, and
telecommunications used all over Brazil.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Sensory
Sensory Inc., based in Santa Clara, CA, was founded in 1994 and is a leader in speech technologies for consumer products.
June 11, 2001 Sensory signed an agreement for the rights to continue production of Texas Instruments Inc.’s MSP50C6xx speech synthesis integrated circuit (IC) product line.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Sharp
The
Sharp Corporation was founded in 1912 by Tokuji Hayakawa and takes its name from
one of our founder's first inventions, the Ever Sharp propelling pencil,
developed in 1915. Sharp has continued this creative tradition, developing
technologically innovative products to enhance our lives, add to our comfort,
broaden our perspectives and boost our productivity. Sharp is recognized for its
pioneering research into Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) technology. Sharp
introduced the first LCD electronic calculator back in 1973. Since then, it has
continued to develop revolutionary LCD products such as the ViewCam, Ultra-Lite
notebook pc and touch-screen personal organizers. Perhaps the best
illustration of the impact of liquid crystal display technology on product
development is with the simple calculator. Sharp introduced the world's first
all-transistor desktop calculator in 1964. By 1979, just 15 years later, Sharp
announced the world's first super-thin (1.6mm) card sized calculator.
Today, Sharp leads the way in LCD and is a worldwide developer of core
technologies that will play an integral role in the development of digital
technology such as optoelectronics, infrared, semiconductors and flash memory.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Shopko
Shopko (formerly ShopKo until May 2007) was founded in April 5, 1962 by James Ruben as a discount store in Ashwaubenon, WI. Shopko runs today 135 stores located in 13 states.
In 2010 Shopko started to release some well-known calculators with the Texas Instruments brand in unusual colors and introduced the TI-30XIIS in pink, dark blue and green.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Sinclair
Sinclair Radionics Ltd was a company founded by Sir Clive Sinclair († September 16, 2021) on July 25, 1961 in Cambridge, England. The company originally developed hi-fi products but expanded their portfolio soon into radios, calculators and scientific instruments.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Staples
Staples is the world's leading
supplier of office products for small to
large businesses with over 2,000 located in 11 countries.
In 2004 Staples started to release some well-known calculators with the
Texas Instruments brand in unusual colors. e.g. the TI-83 Plus in lime green.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
The
Sunnyvale, California based company Stokes Publishing Company, Inc. sells under
the label "The Educator" calculators optimized for teaching purposes.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Tamaya
Tamaya & Company
Limited, Tokyo, Japan is a well known manufacturer of Surveying Instruments
and Navigation Instruments (Marine Sextant, Navigator
Calculator, Binoculars, Clock, Barometer &
Triangles).
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Target
Retailing
company Dayton Dry Goods, Co. was founded already in 1962 and opened the first
Target store in 1962. In 2006 Target was the sixth-largest retailer in the
United States with 1488 stores and $59.4 billions.
In 2002 Target started to release some well-known calculators with the Texas
Instruments brand in unusual colors, e.g. the TI-83 Plus in violet and blue. In
2007 we found the TI-503SV, TI-30XIIS and TI-84 Plus
SE in pink.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• TEAL
Teal
calculators are a bit of a puzzle. "TEAL" was a brand name of calculators made
by Tokyo Electronic Application Laboratory. Entering the calculator business in
the late 1960s the company produced some innovative calculators, including early
LCD models. Some Teal calculators were also sold under the names of other
companies.
Unfortunately, the company was greatly affected by the calculator
price war of the mid 1970s and went out of business in 1978.
However, some
calculators, like the Photon, have a U.S.A. address, which may be the American
division of Tokyo Electronic Application Laboratory Ltd., though the date code
on the integrated circuit of the Teal Photon displayed here is 1979, which is
later than the date at which the Japanese company supposedly went out of
business.
Calculators are also found under the Tealtronic name, which may or
may not be related to TEAL.
"TEAL" is a brand name of the calculator made by
Tokyo Elestronic Apprication Lab. It was established around 1968 as a electric
calculator company. They have two factories in Nagano area. They sold calculator
to US and European department with the brand name "TEAL". And they sold many
calculators to Canon Toshiba, Hitachi as a OEM machine. By fierce calculator
war, it was bankrupted 1978. It was said "the last bankrupted company in the
electric calculator war". After that only 2 companies - Sharp and Casio remain
as an electronic calculator company in Japan.
Shinichiro Osaki and Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Technico
Inventa Electronics Corporation of Taipei, Taiwan started
already in 1975 manufacturing and marketing calculators under the Technico brand.
Inventa Electronics Co. is today known as Inventec
Corporation, one of the World's largest manufacturers of mobile devices and
computers.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Texet
Texet was, and still is, a calculator and office equipment marketing company. Based in Manchester, England, it has been owned for many years by the family run Hira Company Limited.
Nigel Tout and Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Tiger
Electronics Ltd., an American toy manufacturer, was founded in 1978 by Randy Rissman and Roger Shiffman. In February 1995 Tiger Electronics acquired Texas Instruments Inc.'s toy division and agreed to make and market electronic toys for Sega Enterprises Ltd. and Hasbro Inc.
With the Super Speak & Spell, Super Speak & Math and Deluxe Super Speak & Spell at least three Texas Instruments’ products survived for some years.
Since 1998 Tiger Electronics is part of the Hasbro toy company.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Toshiba
Toshiba's
early history has two strands: 1875 saw the establishment of Tanaka Seizo-sho
(Tanaka Engineering Works), Japan's first manufacturer of telegraphic equipment.
Its founder, Hisashige Tanaka (1799-1881), was well known from his youth for
inventions that included mechanical dolls and a perpetual clock. Under the name
Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works), his company became one of
Japan's largest manufacturers of heavy electrical apparatus. In 1890,
Hakunetsu-sha & Co., Ltd., was established as Japan's first plant for
electric incandescent lamps. Subsequent diversification saw the company evolve
as a manufacturer of consumer products. In 1899, the company was renamed Tokyo
Denki (Tokyo Electric Co.).
In 1939,
these two companies, leaders in their respective fields, merged to form an
integrated electric equipment manufacturer, Tokyo Shibaura Denki (Tokyo Shibaura
Electric Co., Ltd.). The company was soon well known as 'Toshiba', which became
its official name in 1978.
Toshiba, a
world leader in high technology, is today an integrated manufacturer of
electrical and electronic products spanning information & communications
equipment and systems (PC and other computer systems, storage devices,
telecommunications equipment, social automation systems, medical electronics
equipment, space related products, etc.), electronic components & materials
(semiconductors, electron tubes, optoelectronic devices, liquid crystal display,
batteries, printed circuits boards, etc.), power systems & industrial
equipment (industrial apparatus, power generating plants, transportation
equipment, elevators & escalators, etc.) and consume products (video and
digital home products, home appliances, etc.).
Toshiba
plays an important role in the history of Texas Instrument‘s calculators. The
only official reported calculator manufactured by Toshiba and sold under the TI
brand is the TI-66. Anyway, if you dig deeper into some other calculators like
the TI-1106, TI-1750 or TI-1790 you’ll notice more than the influence of
Toshiba’s calculator chips. Toshiba TEC Corporation is the
proven manufacturer of most desktop calculators introduced by Texas Instruments
between 1981 and 1988. Today most calculators developed and manufactured by
Texas Instruments and their OEM partners use a "brain" with the Toshiba
logo.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Due to the
Law on Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power, Tokyo Electric
Appliances Co., Ltd. was established and separated from the Ohito Plant of Tokyo
Shibaura Electric Co., the later "Toshiba".
About 1952 the company was renamed as Tokyo Electric Co. (TEC). In October, 1966
TEC acquired Tokyo Business Machine Co. (established 1945) and started in 1971
the production of electronic cash register. After a merger with TEC Electronics
Corporation the company name changed to TEC Corporation and since 1999 to
Toshiba TEC Corporation. Major overseas manufacturing subsidiaries were
established 1985 in Singapore and 1995 in Malaysia. Toshiba TEC Corporation
manufactured for Texas Instruments between 1981 and 1988 more or less the whole
line of desktop calculators.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Towa Sankiden of Japan manufactured for Triumph-Adler and under their own brand some of the earliest calculators using solar cells instead of batteries.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
The German Triumph company was founded already in 1896 as a daughter company of the UK Triumph Cycle Company and manufactured bicycles. In 1913 the company split and started to manufacture office equipment, e.g. typewriters. After a merger in 1958 with Adler the Triumph-Adler company was the 5th largest manufacturer of office products and was sold end of the 60s to Litton
Industries.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
True Value
was founded already in 1948 and developed soon as leader in the hardware
industry. With its huge product selection and nowadays over 7,000 stores, True
Value is a trusted resource for do-it-yourselfers in big cities and small towns
alike. In 1963 True Value merged with Cotter & Company, founded in 1948,
too. In the year 1976 two calculators manufactured by Texas Instruments, the
TI-1200 and TI-1250 were sold under the label of the True Value Hardware Stores.
Cotter
& Company grew fast, in 1979 sales topped the first time $1 billion. But
Cotter & Company didn't stop there! It had grown to a retail cooperative of
over 5,000 stores with a wholesale volume of more than $2.4 billion by July 1997
when it merged with ServiStar Coast to Coast Corporation to form TruServ.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Truly
Truly Electronics Manufacturing Ltd. was established in the year 1979 in Hong Kong as a contract manufacturer of calculators. In 1992 Truly started production of LC-Displays for their own products and since 1994 they cover 100% of the inhouse consumption. Today Truly has three has three major manufacture and marketing businesses:
* Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panels and modules
* Telecommunications products including pagers and GSM telephone handsets
* Portable calculators for different demands (sold under Truly brand or OEM business, e.g. Canon)
The three manufacturing
bases are all located in the Group's 2.2 million square feet industrial
complex in Guangdong, Province of China.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Underwood Distributing Co.,
Georgia, was founded in 1973 by Milton R. Underwood. The business originally drove from office supply store to office supply store selling calculators and other office supplies out of the back of a big groovy van. The business was passed on to his son, Miles, who continued to move the business forward. The business sold calculators from brands such as Sharp, Texas Instruments, Casio and Canon, as well as photocopiers, printers, inks, toners, and paper. From the late 90s until the beginning of the 2010s, the business slowly transitioned from a direct sales model to a modern wholesale / distributor model. With a focus on top brands, Underwood Distributing Co. has established itself as a leader in the industry. The company is an authorized educational dealer for Texas Instruments and a distributor for brands like Sharp, Calculated Industries, and others.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• UNIS
UNIS - Udruzena Metalna Industrija was founded 1968 in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, now Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. UNIS manufactured early in the 1970's typewriters for Olympia Werke in Wilhelmshaven, West Germany and we know with the SLR 80 only one calculator with the UNIS logo.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Unisonic Products Corporation was founded in 1972 in New York City as manufacturer and distributor of consumer electronics, including electronic calculators and games. Manufacturing was outsourced to Far East companies, mainly based in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Wal-Mart
Sam Walton
founded in 1962 a tiny chain of stores in Arkansas and Kansas. In the 1980s, Wal-Mart became one of the most
successful retailers in America. Sales grew to $26 billion by 1989, compared to $1 billion in 1980. Employment increased tenfold. At the end of the decade there were nearly 1,400 stores.
Today, Sam's gamble is a global company with more than 1.3 million associates worldwide and nearly 5,000 stores and wholesale clubs across 10
countries.
In 2003 Wal-Mart started to release some well-known calculators with the Texas
Instruments brand in unusual colors. e.g. the TI-30XII series in purple and
lime-green.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Western Auto Supply Company was started in 1909 in Kansas City, Missouri by George Pepperdine as mail order business for replacement auto parts. The first retail store was established in 1921, and grew quickly as automobiles became more and more common. By the end of the
1950s Western Auto was very much like a Sears store, even equipped with a Catalog Order Center. Auto Parts comprised only a small percentage of the company's sales by the mid-1960s and had all but disappeared by the
1970s. In 1987, Sears Roebuck purchased Western Auto and in 1998 parent company Sears sold the remnants of Western Auto to Advance Auto Parts of Roanoke, Virginia.
You can easily recognize the calculators sold by Western Auto as Texas
Instruments products. Most calculators were only personalized with a wooden foil on the key plate,
others received just a new keyplate.
Joerg
Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Western
Digital Corporation, originally called General Digital Corporation, was founded
in California on April 23, 1970 by Alvin B. Phillips. Mr. Phillips had 20 years
of semi-conductor experience, which included setting up IC facilities for
Motorola. They rapidly became the largest independent manufacturer of calculator
chips in the world, one million chips by 1975. Original officers of the company
include Mr. Phillips, Mr. Larry Alves, Mr. Albert Dall, Mr. Henry Rodeen, Mr.
Richard Sirrine and Mr. Joseph Baia. During the early Eighties,
Western Digital shifted its focus to the newly emerging PC market.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
• Zayre
Zayre Corporation was founded in 1956 by Stanley and Sumner Feldberg in Hyannis, Massachusetts tracing back to the New England Trading Company in Boston founded already in 1919 by the two brothers Max and Morris Feldberg.
Zayre (Gut), which means "very good" in Yiddish, was started as a discount department store chain. In Summer 1976 Zayre distributed exclusively the three Texas Instruments calculators Concept I, Concept II and Concept III based on the TI-1200, TI-1250, resp. SR-16 II. In the same year Zayre launched T.J. Maxx, a new off-price chain selling family apparel and home fashions and in 1984 a new warehouse retail concept to the Northeast called BJ's Wholesale Club was introduced.
In 1988, Zayre sold their own nameplate to Ames Department Stores, Inc., a rival discount department store chain, and the company renamed itself to The TJX Companies, Incorporated. Ames acquired the bankrupt 392 Zayre stores, closing 74 of them. After some reorganizing in 1990 Ames announced in August 2002 to go out of business and closed the remaining shops in October 2002.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
Zeny
Corporation was founded already 1974 in Taipei, Taiwan and manufactures
telephone sets, answering machines and electronic calculators. In 2004 Zeny
Corp. counted about 600 employees. In the 1990's Zeny Corp. (Shenzhen) was
established in China and we know Texas Instruments calculators from both plants
(TI-5024/Taiwan, TI-5033 II/China).
Other major customers of Zeny are Canon and Sharp of Japan.
Joerg Woerner, Datamath Calculator Museum
If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.
© Joerg Woerner, 2001 - 2025. No reprints without written permission.