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Iain Jones International Addison Mini A

Iain Jones International Addison Mini A

Distinctive features: A model from one of a number of  U.S. companies that briefly entered the calculator market in the early 1970s. Has a battery-level meter.

Technical details:
Display is 8 digits, red LED.

4-functions.

9v (PP3) rechargeable, see photograph of the rear, above.
Has a battery-level meter, just above the left end of the display.

Main integrated circuit is a General Instrument C550, here date coded early 1973.

80 x 149 x 28 mm (3.1" x 5.9" x 1.1").

c1973.

Designed and manufactured by Iain Jones International , Ltd, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.

In the early 1970s the number of electronics components in a calculator had reduced but were still fairly costly. A number of small electronics companies, especially in the U.S.A., saw the opportunity of manufacturing calculators and making a profit. Iain Jones International Ltd. is one such company and, like many of them, little is known about it apart from a small number of models of calculator which turn up.
With the ever reducing cost of the electronics components and the number of companies starting to mass-produce calculators, the selling price of calculators plummetted and the profits from manufacturing them dwindled. Most of these small companies dropped out of the calculator business after a year or two.

This model is an interesting example. It uses the GI C550 integrated circuit, which was a very common calculator integrated circuit at this time, together with the Texas Instruments Klixon keypad, but unusually it makes use of a 9v PP3 rechargeable battery and is one of the smallest calculators to have a battery-level meter.

To see more calculators from companies that only produced one or two models see the article "One Hit Wonders" in the Collecting Calculators section of this site.

Vintage Calculators

© Text & photographs copyright Nigel Tout   2000-2012 except where noted otherwise.