Electrosolids Corp. Electronic Calculator
Computron CC 1200
Some time ago while looking through old journals the announcement below, which appeared in 'Electronics' in April 1961, was discovered[1].
This was well before any other company had announced an electronic desktop calculator, and was quite a puzzle since the name Electrosolids Corporation was not known to be linked in any way to calculators.
A working electronic desktop calculator was actually exhibited the following year, 1962, in Germany according to a report in the German technical journal Der Büromaschinen Mechaniker, as shown below[2]:
Based on a computer translation, this says:
Electronic Desk Calculator "C C 1200"
Computron Corp., subsidiary of Electrosolids Corp., 12740 San Fernando Road, N. Sylmar, Calif./USA, brought out a fully transistorized desktop computer for all four computing functions. The operands are input into the machine via a conventional ten-key keyboard. Decimal points are set automatically. The result had 16 digits. Two computational tasks can be solved simultaneously in less than a second. Four memories can hold fixed values, which can be inserted into the calculation by pressing a key.
Rick Bensene, a technical historian of early electronic calculators, has performed some impressive detective work and has discovered that shortly afterwards Computron Corp. was acquired by Smith-Corona-Marchant (SCM) and further development led to the introduction of the the first SCM electronic desktop calculator the Cogito 240. The fascinating story of this Computron machine can be read at his "Old Calculator Web Museum" at http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/scm240sr.html.
References
Electronic Desk
Calculators
Vintage Calculators
Text & photographs copyright, except where stated otherwise, © Nigel Tout 2000-2024.