News Archive - Rumors of a Hewlett Packard Electronic Calculator
Rumors of an Electronic Calculator Under Development at Hewlett Packard
Electronics Magazine, December, 12, 1966
A brief article hinting at the development of an integrated circuit-based
electronic calculator at Hewlett Packard. As it turned out, HP engineers
were indeed in the formative stages of getting their ducks in row to
pitch moving into the electronic calculator marketplace to executive
management. As it turned out, the folks involved were successful in
getting the approval and funding to move ahead with the project, which
eventually resulted in the market shattering Hewlett Packard
9100A electronic calculator, introduced in the spring of
1968. The 9100A set an entirely new benchmark for
calculating power in a compact desktop package. The 9100A, and its
follow-on, the 9100B did
have some simple linear integrated circuits in the magnetic card
reader/writer used for storing and recalling programs and data to
a small magnetic card, but the entirety of the logic of the calculator was
implemented using discrete transistors, diodes, resistors, and capacitors,
along with ferrite core wire-rope ROM for micro-sequencing, magnetic
core memory for working storage, memory registers, and program
step storage, and a state-of-the art circuit board design that acted as
the read-only memory (ROM) containing the microcode that orchestrated
the operation of the calculator.
