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All of the logic functions of a calculator had been squeezed into the first "calculator on a chip" integrated circuits (ICs) in 1971, but this was leading edge technology of the time and yields were low and costs were high. Many calculators continued to use two or more ICs, especially the scientific and the programmable ones, into the late 1970s.
The HP-35 used five chips, and had been developed by twenty engineers at a cost of a million dollars, leading the Texas Instruments engineers to think that Sinclair's aim to build a scientific calculator around the TMS0805 chip, which could barely handle four-function arithmetic, was impossible.
The Executive impressed the engineers at Texas Instruments, who had used the same chip to produce a longer and wider calculator that was over three times as thick and a great deal more expensive. [10] In 1974, sales of the Executive exceeded £2.5 million, and Sinclair was producing 100,000 calculators each month, of which 55% were exported. [11]
The Cambridge had been preceded by the Sinclair Executive, Sinclair's first pocket calculator, in September 1972.At the time, the Executive was smaller and noticeably thinner than any of its competitors, at 56 by 138 by 9 millimetres (2.20 in × 5.43 in × 0.35 in), fitting easily into a shirt pocket.
The Smithsonian Institution says TI engineers Gary Boone and Michael Cochran succeeded in creating the first microcontroller in 1971. The TMS1802NC was a single-chip microcontroller which was announced September 17, 1971 and implemented a four-function calculator.
Mostek's device took longer to develop but was the world's first single chip calculator, the MK6010, used for the Busicom LE-120A which went on the market in 1971 and was the smallest calculator available for some time. [3] Hewlett-Packard also contracted with Mostek for design and production of chips for their HP-35 and HP-45 calculators. [4]
The TI-59 is an early programmable calculator, that was manufactured by Texas Instruments from 1977. It is the successor to the TI SR-52, quadrupling the number of "program steps" of storage, and adding "ROM Program Modules" (an insertable ROM chip, capable of holding 5000 program steps).
The 901B and the TI-2500 both used the TI TMS0100 family of "calculator-on-a-chip" integrated circuit. TI was now directly competing with their IC customers. Other semiconductor companies such as National Semiconductor and Rockwell began selling calculators.