Casio, Inc. and its parent company Casio Computer Co. Ltd., announced today that one billion electronic Casio calculators have been sold worldwide. The company’s first electronic calculator – the 001, went on sale in 1965, and the company just passed the one billion mark at the end of December.The achievement of selling one billion calculators is evidence of the trust that consumers around the world place on Casio products. In the course of reaching this milestone, Casio contributed to the development of the electronics industry by creating great demand for LSI chips, a key component of electronic calculators, as well as to education in mathematics through the development of scientific calculators. Casio Computer Co., Ltd., was established in 1957 with the successful development of the world’s first fully electric compact relay calculator, the Casio 14-A, which used electric relays in place of the mechanical gears which were the norm at the time. In the fifty years since, Casio has remained at the forefront of calculator development. Building on the technology developed to create the 14-A, Casio launched the 001 in 1965.In 1972, the company created the world’s first personal calculator, the Casio Mini.
Subsequently, Casio launched the first scientific calculator to incorporate a graphing function, in 1985. Casio’s 14-A relay calculator is on display at the National Science Museum in Japan, as a key product in the history of the development of the calculator. A 0.8-mm card calculator, the SL-800, has been preserved at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as an item possessing both a superior design and practicality that should be passed on to future generations.
