Casio SL-800 film card, originally released by Casio in 1983, has been registered as a 2013 Essential Historical Material for Science and Technology by Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science. The SL-800 registered as an Essential Historical Material for Science and Technology was a thin, compact credit card-sized (85 mm × 54 mm) calculator weighing just 12 grams and only 0.8 mm thick. The calculator employed electronic film technology to reduce the thickness of the board containing electronic components including the power supply, as well as the display, keyboard, and case.
Casio’s first desktop electronic calculator, the 001, was released in 1965 and weighed 17 kg. The Casio Mini personal calculator, released in 1972, brought the weight down to just 315 grams, and then the SL-800 was just 12 grams. These dramatic weight reductions in a relatively short period of time show how fast calculator technologies were evolving at that time.
The SL-800 is also in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, as a technical pinnacle in the realization of a thin, compact calculator. The registration of the SL-800 as a 2013 Essential Historical Material for Science and Technology is a testament of the significance of the product.
