Fred Cisin wrote on Sat, 18 Sep 2021 13:45:04 -0700 (PDT) > On Sat, 18 Sep 2021, dwight via cctalk wrote: > > Of course, Busicom was the first programed microprocessor driven > > calculator, it wasn't the first calculator using calculator ICs. That is > > what Busicom was trying to compete with, when going to Intel in the > > first place. > > I think that the Sinclair used TI calculator ICs. > Unless he had a special "in" with TI, AND was fastest to market, then it > is doubtful that he could legitimately claim to be "FIRST".
The TI people were selling their chip as a simple four operation calculator. Here is what the Sinclair people did with it: http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html An interesting project that Sir Clive was involved in was the wafer scale integration effort by Ivor Catt. http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/8199/Anamartic-Limited/ The goal was to eventually do what the Cerebras people are now doing (with lots of positive press), but their first products attempted to replace hard disks with battery-backed wafer scale SRAMs. The many-core processors would come later, but as HD densities took off (after only having grown slowly from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s) the investors pulled out. -- Jecel