In Ancient China and Greece, a machine was used for calculation. The invention and development of the calculator came from the concept of that machine. The first commercial calculating machine was the Arithmometer. Invented in 1820, it was commercially circulated in the year 1851. Another machine that is considered as an important stepping stone in the development of the calculator was the Curta machine, which was popular around 1948 because of its portability. The development of the electronic calculator began with the usage of vacuum tubes in the 1940s and later transistors in the 1950s. In 1954, IBM, a reputed US based company, gave a demonstration, which showed an all transistor calculator. In 1967, ‘Texas Instruments’ released ‘Cal-Tech’, which was the first handheld calculator. Pocket calculator came into its own form in the year 1970 with the use of chips. Both US based companies named ‘Texas Instruments’ and ‘HP’ as well as Japanese companies named ‘Sanyo’ released advanced calculating machines that were portable and thus introduced the calculator to the general public.
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