The Abacus is the earliest form of Calculator; the Abacus can be traced back to as far back as 300BC but can still be found in use around the world by traders and merchants particularly in and around Asia.

The first mechanical calculator was built by Wilhelm Schickard in 1623 and for this he is sometimes referred to as the father of computing but it was not till 1822 when Charles Babbage built a mechanical calculator that could actually hold and manipulate numbers, Babbage called his calculator the “Difference Machine”.

Over the next 80 years several inventors redesigned the Babbage machine and in 1902 the first 10 key Calculator was produced, known as the Dalton Adding Machine it lead to a succession of “10-key add-listers” from many manufacturers.

In the late 1940’s the first computers were produced using vacuum tubes and then transistors which lead to the first electric desktop being produced in Britain in 1961, over the next few years household names like Sharp and Olivetti continued to develop Calculators in this way.

The early 1970’s saw desk top machines evolve to become truly “pocket calculators” as the technologies moved at quite a pace. The power hungry bright red and green LED machines were replaced around 1972 by Liquid Crystal Display or LCD.

In the early 1980’s Calculators has become mass produced and the retail prices fell to affordable levels, today however the prices range from a few pounds for a basic machine to many thousands of pounds for a high end computer.