Firsts - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Jan 1998

At 03:58 11/01/98, you wrote:
Someone At 01:44 PM 1/11/98 -0500,  wrote:
...
  > >First
programable calc
> 
> Then there is the "first solid state electronic calc" which I think goes
to
> the Busicom from Japan that employed the first production run of the intel
> 4000 chip set: the 4001 (2048 bit ROM), 4002 (320 bit RAM), 4003 (10 bit 
> shift register), and the 4004 (4 bit CPU).  That chip set was shipped to 
> Busicom in March 1971 according to Michael S. Malone's "The
Microprocessor: 
>> A Biography" ISBN 0-387-94342-0 
Then William Donzell added:
...
 >Wang's first (or quite near their first)
product was an all electronic
>calculator, introduced in the late 1960s. They are big, but could be
>lugged around.  
Then Joe:
...
   HP's first calculator, the 9100a, was introduced
in 1967 or 68.  It had
no ICs, used core memories, and used logic gates made of diodes and
resistors. It did have transistors but they were mainly used as amplifiers
for the core memory. I guess it still qualifies as "solid state".) It was
fully proggramable and used RPN.  I have a 9100B with a 1969 date code.

  I believe the Japanese Busicom calculator is even older and dates from
about 1966. 
Let see if I' m able to go more back:

I translate from the URL page of the Pisa University Scientific Instruments
Preservation Dept. <
http://www.difi.unipi.it/museo/calcolat/miniepc/miniepc.html >

Olivetti Programma 101

         Olivetti Programma 101 

         Programma 101 comes introduced in 1965 during the BEMA elecronic 
         show,in New York.It represents the first "desktop calculator" ever
         constructed in the world.
         40.000 exemplary were constructed at the price of 3.200 $
         The machine offered the possibility to carry out arithmetical
operations in             direct way, or of being programmed for the
calculation of complex functions.
         The programs could be stored in magnetic stripes.
         It was entirely planned and realized in the Olivetti research
laboratories of
         Pregnana, from a group of researchers guided from the Ing. Piergiorgio
         Perotto, the design was from the Arch. Mario Bellini. 

Attacment:picture of the machine "olip101.jpg"