Looking back at the evolution of calculators, it can be deduced that since the early 1970s, the daily lives of people around the world is getting changed and a lot easier just by the advent of the miniature electronic machine called “calculator”. As small as it may seem to be, it is capable of solving any problems and subsequently perform different mathematical problems in a quick succession and more accurately than before. From hence, calculators have ultimately expanded the horizon of mathematics both for students, teachers, businessmen and women and another field that employs mathematical calculations.
The first compact calculator was developed and was known a the abacus. Although the abacus does not perform mathematical solutions, its simplifed calculations with its counting ability. Abacus was developed in the 9th century in one of the suburbs in China.
Later on, there was a young French mathematician named Blaise Pascal who lived between 1623 - 1662. He (Pascal) invented the first ever adding machine in the 17th century. His device was clever on that is mainly driven by lots of motor gears. And with much energy, the pascal calculator is capable of performing series of additions and literal subtraction. This is the origin of calculators. It started right from pascal’s calculator.
In light of the evolution of calculators, ever since it started with Pascal there have been lots of quests to improve what how we perform our calculations. This quest led to the first commercial mechanical device that is capable of performing simple additions and subtraction. This particular machine was developed by a man named William Seward Burroughs in 1886. In continuity, a man who goes by the name Otto Steger so developed a calculator he named “the Millionaire”. His development is what brought out a machine capable of performing multiplication tasks.
As time went by, the handheld calculator developed by the Texas instruments, incorporated in the year 1966. The team that produced the handheld calculator include the likes of Jerry D. Merryman, James H. Van Tassel, and Jack St. Clair Kilby. Not until 1974, the Texas Instruments produced a basic prototype for the miniature electronic calculator plans. From the prototype which is a personal size, it can be deduced that the calculator operates on a battery to power it. From the calculator, the main electronic circuitry was in a single integrated semiconductor array such as the popular one chip calculators.
Right from that time, the social electronics calculator made the top of all calculator inventions till 1958 when the same Texas instrument invented a calculator that operates with an integrated circuit. This key development os what led to the repackaging of the calculator designs and other electronic machines to date.
From that period there have been lots of developments that have occurred to make calculator a better machine to operate and handle.
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