Summary

This is an early electronic calculator that was used from 1969 to 1979 at the Kiwi (Polish) Australia factory in South Clayton. The donor was sometime Factory Engineer and took this item with intention of building a cathode ray oscilloscope - something he clearly did not do. This model used transistors and its display is a cathode ray tube (CRT). It is a four function calculator. It is relatively large for such a limited use compared to the smaller four function calculators developed from 1975 onwards and ones that can be found in watches from the 1990s onwards.

Physical Description

Beige metal unit, rectangular in planform, with a stepped upper cover. The vertical panel of the step contains a small rectangular cathode ray screen. The sloping panel in front of the screen contains a numeric keypad plus several function keys and a rotary thumbwheel.

Significance

IThe Friden EC - 130 is one of the earliest all-electronic calculators, and is generally regarded as the first transistorized electronic calculator. A few other calculator manufacturers in Europe and Japan claim that they were the first to develop an all-transistor calculator, but apparently Friden announced the Friden 130 nearly six months before these other manufacturers even displayed prototypes of their transistorized calculators. Earlier electronic calculators used relays or vacuum tubes, such as the Casio 14-A relay calculator (1956), or the tube-based Sumlock Comptometer/Bell Punch Anita C/VIII (1961).

The EC-130 calculator is also very significant item and rare because it is a calculator with a CRT display. Furthermore it has links with CSIRAC - in the use of CRT display and also in the fact that it uses delay lines, albeit in a more modern, transistorised implementation.

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