Jerry Merryman , one of three mass at Texas Instruments credit with inventing the world ’s first handheld electronic calculator in the sixties , died at a Dallas hospital on February 27 . Merryman was 86 years old .
In the fall of 1965 , Merryman and his coworkers at TI were tasked with creating a handheld electronic calculator in an epoch when most electronics , from computer to calculators to televisions , were enormous machines . The little calculator at the time weighed over 45 pounds . Eighteen months later , in 1967 , Merryman helped deliver a 3 - hammer prototype to his Bos . It was dubbed the CAL - TECH and that prototype now sits in the Smithsonian .
As the Associated Pressnotes , the team was led by Jack Kilby who invented the mix circuit in 1958 and would go on to acquire the Nobel Prize in Physics in the year 2000 . There were plenty of people who think it could n’t be done , but Merryman , along with his colleagues like James Van Tassel at TI , worked nighttime and day on the task .
“ [ Kilby ] called some engineers in his office and said we postulate to make some sort of personal computing gimmick . It would have to have some buttons on it to put in a problem , and some neon lights or something to give the answer , ” Merryman told the Associated Press in a video recording interview from2007 . “ It would have to be stamp battery - operated and small enough to hold in your hand . ”
One of the biggest problems was n’t simply make the calculator relatively small-scale , it was doing so without break the bank . As Merryman told the AP , some at TI were win over that you could make the matter without spending thousands of dollars on parts alone .
The epitome could do four introductory functions : plus , subtraction , propagation , and part . And while the calculator is incredibly primitive to those of us in the 21st century , it revolutionize the world of electronics . The term “ computer ” had n’t catch on yet , so the first generic name for the affair internally at TI was a “ sloping trough prescript computer . ” A commercial version of the reckoner , brand as the Pocketronic , survive on sale in 1970 .
As the 1996 report “ The History of the Hand - Held Electronic Calculator , ” by Kathy B. Hamrick excuse , TI wanted to make a handheld calculator because at the time , the company ’s microchips were only being used by the war machine and industry . TI ’s poker chip were power the Cold War ’s Minute Man missiles that tolerate ready in the effect of nuclear warfare , but the technical school company wanted to break into the consumer market to make a demand for its chips .
When the Pocketronic calculator attain the grocery , pop medium did n’t cite Merryman or anyone else on the Texas Instruments squad by name . It was important work in the field of consumer electronics , but like so many conception of the 20th hundred done at labs and big companies , it was largely anon. labor .
The handheld calculating machine received plenty of fortieth birthday celebrations in 2007 though , and the introduction of the CAL - TECH prototype into the Smithsonian was rewarding for Merryman nonetheless .
“ The most overwhelming matter was seeing my paradigm between the work of Tom Edison and Graham Bell at the Smithsonian , ” Merryman said at a ceremony in 2007 .
“ He always sound out that he did n’t care anything about being famous , if his friends thought he did a good job , he was happy , ” Phyllis Merryman , Jerry ’s wife , told the AP .
[ Associated Press ]
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