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CASIO: CS14A (Relay)
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Product number (P/N): CS14A,
Keywords/Tags: CS14A | 14A
Date of intro: jun-1957, Dimensions: 1010x780x420mm, Weight: 120000g,
Power: AC,
Classification: / Relay Computer,
Related with: CASIO_docu: (Broch.) *: A brief introduction... (1972); CASIO_docu: (Broch.) CS14A: Relay Computer,
Serie-members: CASIO: CS14A (Relay); CASIO: CS14B (Relay),
Initial Cost Price: 485000 JPY (€ 3.928,50), Collector value: 10/10,
Info: Japan, which has from ancient times availed itself of the abacus, was long spared the necessity of developing mechanical calculators, which gave the West a commanding technological lead in this field.
Thus domestic demand was first supplied entirely by imported equipment. In 1956, KASHIO Toshio, invented a new type of calculator using fully electrical relay circuits, the first domestic calculator able to compete with imported models,
and, to effect the mass production and sale of this calculator, founded CASIO in 1957.
The CS14A attracted great attention both in Japan and abroad, for though different in-shape, it embodied precisely the same function, operation, and display methods which characterize solid-state desktop calculators.
And the internal calculating system of the CS14A, though the elements were different, was basically similar.
Thus the CS14A was a forerunner of desktop calculators, and the reversal of the trend in electric calculators in becoming virtually a Japanese monopoly is a source of profound satisfaction.

Info from CASIO Website:
Equipped with relays, the 14A was the world’s first compact all-electric calculator. In the 1950s, gears were used in office calculators,
which took about 10 seconds on average to perform multiplication or division.
Furthermore, because the gears were rotated at high speed by electric motor, there was also a noise problem.
In order to overcome these issues by developing a calculator based on a completely new concept, the KASHIO brothers looked at relays,
a technology used by telephone exchanges at that time.
Massive computers equipped with 13,000 relays were already in use.
With its release in 1957, the 14A was able to perform the four basic arithmetic operations up to 14 digits using just 341 relays.
The KASHIO brothers also succeeded in making a calculator that was desk size — small enough to be installed in an office.
While gear-type calculators took about 10 seconds to perform multiplication and division, the 14A took only five to six seconds, and was much quieter.
Moreover, the calculators at that time used what was called a ‘full keypad’ featuring a column of keys (0 to 9) for each of the digit places.
The 14A had just 10 number keys, just like pocket calculators today.

Internet: Link-1: IPSJ Computer Museum

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