The first electronic calculator I got to play with was a Commodore like this http://www.arithmomuseum.com/album.php?cat=c&id=478&lang=en The large engineering company my father worked for negotiated a staff discount on them and he decided to buy one. Trying it out I was surprised and impressed that it displayed the numbers as you keyed them in. Until then I had only encountered mechanical calculators where that usually wasn't a feature. Back to the company where my Father worked, he occasionally told the story about how a year or so earlier they had bought some scientific calculators for use around the office. To make sure they didn't end up in peoples pockets or briefcases each one was mounted onto a large piece of wood ! In contrast to those they didn't have a problem with him bringing a mains powered mechanical calculator the size of an electric typewriter home once to do some work over the weekend. That thing sounded like a cross between a fruit machine and a washing machine if you did something like a multiply. Later in the 1970s a couple of schoolmates had Commodore calculators. I recall going to one of their houses to see one. Having spent £50 (of 1970s money) on a top of the range model his parents decided it was too valuable for him to take to school, hence my visit to see "the calculator". Back to Commodore I knew my Fathers one was "Made in the U.K." so I asked Google about that. "Commodore had a calculator assembly plant in the United Kingdom, specifically located in Eaglescliffe, England . Location: The facility was part of Commodore Business Machines Limited in England and was active in the early-to-mid 1970s. Production Volume: By 1975, the Eaglescliffe plant was reportedly producing 6 million calculators per year, contributing to Commodore holding 30% of the UK calculator market at that time. Production Details: While labeled "Made in UK" or "Made in England," many of these calculators, such as the 776M and 796M models, often contained circuit boards marked "Made in Japan," indicating a high degree of component importing for final assembly. Model Production: The factory produced various models to meet the high demand in Britain for low-cost calculators. Industry Context: The UK factory was crucial during the boom in personal calculator demand, but as prices dropped due to intense competition in the late 1970s, Commodore moved production to lower-cost regions like Hong Kong and transitioned to computer manufacturing.". I suspect many younger people don't realise how regionalised things were due to tariffs etc in the 1970s. If @zefram wants an Italian made calculator I know lots of the Texas Instruments TI30 LED calculators were made in Italy. Thinking about how fast the calculator market moved, by 1980 both I and my father had Casio LCD scientific calculators which managed thousands of hours off a set of batteries rather than ten. Although Commodore made some LCD calculators I don't recall ever seeing one. 1975 calculators at Argos. One Commodore, one Sharp, but no Casios
Thank you @Mister X and @Longman because of your contributions. My question was coming not by a ‘conspiration man’ but simply because in my country Commodore calculators had no market and no adv presence.I like retro-archeology.
I decided I had better back up my statement by checking on eBay.co.uk for Commodore calculators. There were plenty. This one caught my eye as it looks very similar to the one my schoolmate had. Commodore seemed to think that the more expensive the calculator the more buttons it should have. You can imagine the planning meeting "can anyone think of any more functions we can add?" There is a similar model with 99 keys ! As for retro-archaeology I wonder if you have heard the story of how in the 1970s Texas Instruments almost bankrupted Commodore by undercutting their calculators. That was what led to Commodore buying the chip company MOS. Less than a decade later they got their revenge by forcing Texas Instruments out of the home computer market. If you don't want to watch the whole video the question can probably be answered with three letters "C64".
Nice found! The TI-99 was too much serious and too much 16bit for the time, when we used to google our eyes only for C64 vs ZX Spectrum holy war!
TI and HP had the calculator market cornered here. CDV had posted that TI (TI-85) got hooked into the school system here and was very popular for advanced math. It's very interesting that Commodore never had a footprint with calculators but was huge with home computers. There's other interesting videos when Commodore bought MOS and then started selling it to Atari for the early game systems.
