The First Handheld Calculator
Question: Who made the first handheld calculator?
Answer: Jack Kilby, Jerry Merryman, and James Van Tassel of Texas Instruments. They completed it in 1967.
It only performed four operations: additional, subtraction, multiplication, and division. And the result of a calculation printed on a thin strip of paper, which be seen coming out of the left side of the calculator. Plus, it would only fit in a pretty big “pocket,” because this calculator was 4-1/4 x 6-1/8 x 1-3/4-inches in size.
If you look inside, you can see the integrated circuits—ancestors of today’s computer chips—that were under the keyboard.
To learn even more, read Texas Instruments Cal-Tech: World’s First Pocket Electronic Calculator.
(Images courtesy of Texas Instruments.)