The+Invention+of+the+Hand-held+Calculator+by+Alejandro+Baptista

The hand-held pocket calculator was invented at Texas Instruments, Incorporated (TI) in 1966 by a development team which included Jerry D. Merryman, James H. Van Tassel and Jack St. Clair Kilby. In 1974 a basic patent for miniature electronic calculators has been issued to Texas Instruments Incorporated. The patent is for personal-sized, battery-operated calculators which have their main electronic circuitry in a single integrated semiconductor circuit array, such as the popular "one-chip" calculators. This represents another in a series of landmark developments at Texas Instruments directly relating to miniature calculators. In 1958, Texas Instruments invented the first ** integrated circuit **, subsequently patented in 1964. This key innovation resulted in dramatic change in virtually all areas of electronics equipment design, including calculators. This was followed by major developments fundamental to MOS/LSI integrated circuitry - the basic technology behind today's miniature calculators. Two key patents on MOS/LSI were awarded to TI in 1972. A third significant milestone was the introduction by TI in 1971 of the "calculator-on-a-chip" MOS/LSI circuit which became the heart of modern, miniature calculators. The miniature calculator described in the new TI patent was the result of work done at TI in the mid-60s. The patent (Number 3,819,921), originally filed in 1967, was awarded to TI June 25, 1974. This miniature calculator (the world's first) employed a large-scale integrated semiconductor array containing the equivalent of thousands of discrete semiconductor devices. Measuring 4-1/4 x 6-1/8 x 1-3/4-inches, it was the first mini-calculator to have the high degree of computational power found only at the time in considerably larger machines. The working heart of the first miniature calculator was an integrated semiconductor circuit array that contained all the necessary electronics for performing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Other elements of this early example of the miniature calculator included a small keyboard with 18 keys and a visual display in the form of a semiconductor thermal printer for printing out calculations of up to 12 decimal digits. Since the invention of this first miniature calculator, semiconductor technology has had a dramatic impact on the electronic calculator industry with ever-decreasing prices characteristic of this new breed of computational machines. These price reductions have been a result of advances in solid-state technology and economies of large-scale calculator manufacturing. Evolving over the years since 1966 has been a trend toward more complex calculator integrated circuits with resulting semiconductor economies and lower prices to end-use customers. The 1966 business calculator version retailing for $2000 contained over a thousand discrete semiconductors such as transistors and resistors with a cost of $170. In 1968, integrated circuits (ICs) began finding their niche in business calculators with a typical selling price of $1000. These initial IC models had 90 ICs at a cost of $125. Integrated circuit application, therefore, reduced the cost of parts as well as having a substantial impact on parts handling and assembling. With the advent of MOS/LSI in 1970 early portable calculators using more than one major IC and priced at around $300 to $500 were produced using LSI circuits. TI's single MOS/LSI "calculator-on-a-chip" IC in 1971 heralded the age of the low-cost consumer handheld calculator and ignited the burgeoning electronic calculator market. This is a picture of one of the first handheld calculators from Texas Instruments