Sanyo Calculators - Overview
It seems that that Sanyo did not participate in the first and second generations of calculator development but rather was an early entrant to the third generation, when LSI chips displaced the complex early generation designs. Sanyo’s entry also coincided with the maturing of the Japanese LSI microelectronics industry, when entire calculators could finally be placed on a very few chips.
Sanyo was one of three Japanese manufacturers who in 1970 released the first hand-held size calculators.
The contenders for first hand-held electronic calculator are:
- Sharp QT-8B,
- Canon Pocketronic,
- and the Sanyo ICC-0081
Sanyo ICC-82D
The ICC 82D is a multi-chip LSI machine and was one of the very first hand-held, battery operated calculators. It followed soon after the ICC-0081 and appears to use the same electronic logic and LSI chipset.
It is not strictly dawn-age but is interesting to include in DoPECC because it one of the first machines to employ the technology that ended the dawn age.
The ICC 82D has additional interest because detailed technical information has survived that shows exactly how the multi-chip LSI logic was implemented, with circuit and logic diagrams for each member of the chip set.