Why calculator was invented

It would take until for the hand-held pocket calculator to be invented, though, at the Texas Instruments factory by Jerry D. Merryman, James H. Van Tassel and Jack St. Clair Kilby in the USA. And like everything else, the calculator will continue to change and evolve to remain as useful as it has ever been.

See more by Kath Bates. Dr Kathryn Bates is a graduate of archaeology and history. She has excavated across the world as an archaeologist, and tutored medieval history at Leicester University. She joined the administrative team at Oxford Open Learning twelve years ago. Alongside her distance learning work, Dr Bates is a bestselling novelist, and an itinerant creative writing tutor for primary school children. Considered the basis on which the modern calculator has taken its shape, an abacus consisted of small ball-shaped beads that slid on sticks and the sticks were attached to a rectangular frame.

Many countries in Asia, especially China, still use the abacus. AS the human understanding and intelligence grew broader, it began to invent advanced mechanical devices for counting. In , during the Renaissance era, Blaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator which was the first device to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division on its own — an advanced version of abacus, but a primitive form of the calculator.

IT was during the Industrial Revolution that breakthroughs in developing an innovative calculator design came to fore when inventors had mechanical and technical expertise by their side and because the industries of the west were moving towards progress.

THE first successful adding machine was the Arithmometer, which was invented in However, it took the machine another three decades before it could be made available in the market in It was a modern design and more accurate than the previous adding machines. THE earlier designs of these adding machines either had a handle to rotate the wheels to do the calculations or had beads as in the case of an abacus.

In , however, the interface of these adding machines had a facelift when push buttons were installed. These push buttons are still used today in calculators. In , these push buttons were considered a big step forward to simplify the working of an adding machine.

THE huge size of these adding machines was a concern for the inventors and the users because it was difficult to carry them. Reducing the size was a challenge for inventors who had to do so without affecting the computation process.

In , people were amazed to see the Curta calculator, designed by an Austrian engineer, Curt Herzstark. Baldwin of St. Louis, Missouri, invented a pinwheel calculator in the United States of America in Baldwin also designed a simple adding device, another Arithmometer in US patent number In American inventor Dorr E. Felt invented the Comptometer, the first successful key-driven adding and calculating machine and the Comptograph, the first printing adding machine.

In William Seward Burroughs invented a nine-digit adding device with a printing mechanism, designed to record only the final result of calculation and the large scale production of his machines began. Up to the 's calculators were complicated motor-assisted mechanical adding machines with no other electronic parts.

In the Bell Punch Co. In the Philips company produced their prototypes of electronic calculators and in the Sony Corporation introduced the world's first all-transistorized no vacuum tube desk-top electronic calculators. The electronic calculators began to replace the electro-mechanical machines and in Texas Instruments took a massive step forward by producing a prototype of the "Cal-Tech" hand-held calculator.

The invention of the electronic hand-held Calculator was made in by the American inventor Jack S. Kilby and by the 's the first battery-operated "hand-held" calculators were sold. The sales of the new "hand-held" calculators soared and as initial prices decreased they became popular with both students and office workers alike. The First calculator to use a microprocessor, the Intel , was developed in and in the same year Hewlet-Packard introduced the scientific pocket calculator.

In Calculators with Liquid crystal displays LCD were introduced and the first calculators equipped with solar cells, used to charge the internal batteries, were also developed. Personal computers began to be pioneered in by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who jointly founded the Apple corporation and revolutionized the world of Computing. Personal computers now come with a calculator utility program that emulates the appearance and functions of a calculator.

The Calculator Who invented the Calculator? Facts about who invented the Calculator. The Calculator.