Pocket calculator

Have you ever wondered about the history of the development of such a useful device as a pocket calculator? It has long gone are the days when we were doing the arithmetic of calculations themselves in mind, we are increasingly turning to this to our electronic assistants.

Today, the calculator is in every mobile phone, mobile phones and, in turn, are almost all. Ten years ago, when mobile phones were just beginning their way into people who want to automate the calculation carried a mini-calculators (like the one pictured above, right), which have been around for quite some time.

But looked like pocket calculators to the advent of electronic?

In doelektronnuyu era of mini-calculators already exist, and they are easy to guess, were mechanical. One of the most famous and prominent pocket calculators of the time - Curta:

This is not the first mechanical pocket calculator, but until this machine such devices could only add and subtract. Curta calculator was able to produce all four arithmetic operations - addition, subtraction, multiplication and delenie.





This device was invented by Kurt Hertsshtarkom (1902-1988) in 1938. Start serial production of the inventor prevented Europe covered the war. Two years of his life, Kurt spent in a German concentration camp, after his release, he started serial production of these machines in 1947.

The first generation of mechanical calculators were 11-bit, later appeared 15-bit model.

Before the advent in the 1970s of the first pocket electronic calculators, Curta was the most modern and advanced device.