Hewlett-Packard 9100A
| Company type | Product |
|---|---|
| Industry | Electronics, Computing |
| Predecessor | Prototype by Thomas "Tom" E. Osborne |
| Founded | 1968 |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Programmable calculator |
The Hewlett-Packard 9100A (commonly known as the HP 9100A) is one of the pioneering programmable calculator devices, launched in 1968. HP promoted it as a desktop calculator because, according to Bill Hewlett, labeling it a computer might have deterred potential buyers who were familiar with IBM products.
A 1968 advertisement for the 9100A published in Science magazine contains one of the earliest references to the term personal computer.
History
The development of the HP 9100A originated from a prototype created by engineer Thomas "Tom" E. Osborne, who joined Hewlett-Packard to further this initiative.
This breakthrough device utilized a CPU constructed entirely from discrete components, deliberately avoiding the use of expensive integrated circuits. Featuring a CRT display, magnetic card storage, and printer, its price was approximately .
The calculator’s processing speed surpassed that of contemporary machines—addition or subtraction operations required only 2 milliseconds, multiplication took 22 milliseconds, and division completed in 27 milliseconds. This efficiency allowed swift calculation of advanced functions such as trigonometric operations (330 milliseconds) and logarithms (130 milliseconds). These capabilities positioned the 9100A as the inaugural modern scientific calculator and marked the beginning of HP’s adoption of Reverse Polish notation (RPN) in their calculators.
Because of design similarities with Olivetti’s Programma 101, HP paid around in royalties for incorporating features like magnetic card storage and architectural elements.
See also
External links
- HP 9100A Calculator (marketing brochure), 1968 – Available through the Computer History Museum
- HP 9100A/B – The Museum of HP Calculators
- Bell, C. Gordon; Newell, Allen. Computer Structures: Readings and Examples. McGraw-Hill, 1971. Chapter 20: The HP Model 9100A computing calculator, p. 243. Archive
- Steven Leibson interview of Tom Osborne