See this nice big PDF with many illustrations in 14 sections on Francis Hoohkam’s collection of hundreds of calculators and related materials, now held at the Whipple Museum in Cambridge.
By the 1970s, Hookham had noticed the rapid development of calculator technology, and thought it was important that someone kept a record. Why he became so passionate about collecting hand-held electronic calculators even he wasn’t later entirely sure, but starting in 1979 he wrote hundreds of letters to manufacturers, distributers and anyone else he could think of, to build the collection. Hand-drawn cards were handed to friends and acquaintances to encourage them to consider giving old calculators to his collection.
I have met Clive Sinclair. Texas Instruments have been most helpful. Sharp are hostile and talk of classified information and patents (makes me sound like an industrial spy – which I am not)! Casio are not at all interested. Many other approaches have simply not been acknowledged. Bowmar in Canada who made the first have not replied.
From the same source, a sample chapter here of a book about the Whipple Museum, with much interesting calculator-relevant history and some interesting links.
I like old calculators and a I have a few - mechanical and electronic (and a hybrid). I like to show people my old school calculator - Imperial 99T where 1+2*3 is 6 of-course.
Interesting. I decided to look up my 8th grade graduation (1974) gift, an SR-10 from Texas Instruments. I was hoping for a bit of descriptive prose, but just found tabular data. Unfortunately, the author was off a bit - the table shows that the calculator is powered only by mains power. Mine was powered by a rechargeable (and replaceable) battery. I had mine apart, and actually replaced the battery (four(?) AA sized cells.) Several years ago, in a fit of nostalgia, I purchased one on eBay - unfortunately it did not seem to have the same excitement as I remember from opening my 8th grade graduation present.
