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In the very beginning, of course was the abacus, a sort of hand operated mechanical calculator using beads on rods, first used by Sumerians and Egyptians around 2000 BC.
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The first mechanical calculator appeared in 1642, the creations of French intellectual and mathematics whizz kid Blaise Pascal as “a device that will eventually perform all four arithmetic operations without relying on human intelligence.”
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A further step forward occurred in 1887 when Dorr. E. Felt’s US-patented key driven ‘Comptometer’ took calculating into the push button age. This machine, too, spurred a host of imitators.
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During the Second World War, the challenges of code-breaking produced the first all-electronic computer, Colossus. But this was a specialised machine that basically performed “exclusive or” (XOR) Boolean algorithms.
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The first step was seen in 1961 with the arrival of ANITA (A New Inspiration To Arithmetic/Accounting). This was the world’s first all-electronic desktop calculator and it was developed in Britain by Control Systems Ltd., marketed under its Bell Punch and Sumlock brands.
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None of these were functionally superior to ANITA, nor cheaper (the Sharp CS10 cost around $2,500 in 1964) but their all-transistor designs opened the floodgates to a new wave of electronic calculators.
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First solar-powered and first credit card sized calculators.Now used on a daily basis.
