Product number (P/N): P210,
Keywords/Tags: P210
Date of intro: nov-1971,
Number of keys: 16,
Classification: / Pocket / Prototype,
Related with: (Persons): DE TROYE Nico (PHILIPS Nat. Lab),
Resemblance with: PHILIPS: P4 (Prototype),
Collector value: 10/10,
Info: Extract from DIGIDOME:
In 1968 the PHILIPS Natuurkundig Laboratorium started the development of a miniaturized calculating machine.
Up till then scientific calculators were heavy, hard to handle and very expensive machines.
Miniaturization made it possible to reduce utterly complex structures to small chips.
The engineers Nico de TROYE, A. SLOB and H. van ESSEN formed the first team.
They started to construct the registers, a total of three, constructed as sliding registers. That was the first chip to build.
Next came the addressing of the display, 8 digits, for which they used three identical chips. The digits had seven segments.
The micro program that was written was saved in ROM.
Finally the team succeeded in constructing the chip that executed the calculations.
When all functions had been developed the total design was cut into pieces and redrawn by several designers.
One of the innovations that have been used extensively later in all kinds of machines was the 'sleeping modus'.
As long as the keys were not activated, the power consumption was reduced considerably. Philips got a patent on that invention.
On the ISSCC conference in 1971 in America PHILIPS (dr. De TROYE) demonstrated the machine with great success.
And yet the PHILIPS Marketing Department thought that the demand for the machine would not be great enough, so... the P210 sadly ended up in the Archives.

!!! This item is WANTED to join the collection !!!