#Friden calculator smithsonian full

This is one of three running SRWs that the curator knows of.

The machine then produced the square root using a clever algorithm within a few seconds.ДЎ0 second exposure of the SRW extracting a square root To extract a square root, the user could simply enter the number on the keyboard and then press the square root key at the base of the keyboard that corresponded to the position of the decimal point. On the left is a ten-digit register that indicates numbers entered for multiplication. On the right are two columns of function bars. The model was introduced in 1949 and manufactured through 1966.

#Friden calculator smithsonian full

(There was a third register for multipliers on the keyboard.) The keyboard contained well over a hundred keys including both full and ten key keyboards. The capabilities of the Friden STW-10 are quite similar to those of the earlier ST-10, although the exterior design and color are different. The lower register showed the number of items added or subtracted, multipliers, and quotients. The upper register showed totals, subtotals, products etc. The Friden SRW was an imposing calculator weighing 42lbs. None of these were functionally superior to ANITA, nor cheaper (the Sharp CS10 cost around 2,500 in 1964) but their all-transistor designs opened the floodgates to a new wave of electronic calculators.

Back in the early '60's, when I was just a child living in Seattle, Washington (my birthplace), one of our neighbors owned a business which involved use of a calculator to generate dairy tank calibration charts. A machine identical to this has a special place in my personal history. The new model looked very much like the Friden STW on which it was based but it added the amazing ability to extract a square root at the touch of a single key. Friden Model STW-10 Electro-Mechanical Calculator. By the 1980s, Friden, Marchant, and NCR were out of the business of selling calculators. The chips in the two former products apparently were made in the United States, with assembly of the calculators in Taiwan. In 1952 Friden shook up the market with the SRW. The Unisonic Xl-101 and Lloyd's E680-3 are virtually identical to the Radio Shack EC-2001 just mentioned. Most of the models sold in 1950 looked a lot like the more advanced models of 1915 with Friden and Monroe selling most of the units. By the 1950's, four function motor driven mechanical calculators had become common on the desks of engineers and scientists.