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<h2 id="nippon-calculating-machine-corporation-ltd">Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation, Ltd</h2> <h3>History</h3> <p>The <i>Nippon Calculating Machine Corp</i> was incorporated in 1945 and changed its name in 1967 to <i>Business Computer Corporation</i>, Busicom. Due to a recession in Japan in 1974, Busicom became the first major Japanese company in the calculator industry to fail. Originally, they made <a href="/facts/Odhner_Arithmometer/vEfE2UpA">Odhner type</a> <a href="/facts/Pinwheel_calculator/8tL2J6Be">mechanical calculators</a> and then moved on to electronic calculators always using state of the art designs. They made the first calculator with a microprocessor for their top-of-the-line machines<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:5" href="#fn:5"><sup>5</sup></a> and they were the first to make calculators with an all-in-one calculator chip, the Mostek MK6010, for their line of inexpensive machines. </p><p>One of their last mechanical calculators is the HL-21, an Odhner type machine.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:6" href="#fn:6"><sup>6</sup></a> Their first calculator with a microprocessor is the <i>Busicom 141-PF</i>. Their entry based calculators, the <i>Busicom LE-120A (Handy-LE)</i> and <i>LE-120S (Handy)</i>,<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:7" href="#fn:7"><sup>7</sup></a> were the first to fit in a pocket and also the first calculators to use an <a href="/facts/LED/gE8x4MDb">LED</a> display. </p> <h3>Microprocessor</h3> <p>In order to limit production cost, Busicom wanted to design a calculator engine that would be based on a few integrated circuits (ICs), containing some <a href="/facts/Read-only_memory/P9QMuDLH">ROMs</a> and <a href="/facts/Shift_register/foHzdJft">shift registers</a> and that could be adapted to a broad range of calculators by just changing the ROM IC chips. </p><p>Busicom's engineers came up with a design that required 12 ICs<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:8" href="#fn:8"><sup>8</sup></a>: 263–265 and asked Intel, a company founded one year earlier in 1968 for the purpose of making solid state <a href="/facts/Random-access_memory/DuD4bxh6">random-access memory</a> (RAM), to finalize and manufacture their calculator engine. People who were influential in convincing Busicom to switch to using microprocessors were <a href="/facts/Tadashi_Sasaki_(engineer)/L5dfNQ3k">Tadashi Sasaki</a> and <a href="/facts/Robert_Noyce/J77WDDld">Robert Noyce</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:9" href="#fn:9"><sup>9</sup></a> </p><p>Intel's <a href="/facts/Marcian_Hoff/q29aa5PN">Ted Hoff</a> was assigned to studying Busicom's design, and came up with a much more elegant, 4 ICs architecture centered on what was to become the 4004 microprocessor surrounded by a mixture of 3 different ICs containing ROM, shift registers, input/output ports and RAM—Intel's first product (1969) was the 3101 <a href="/facts/Schottky_barrier/1a0QpU5x">Schottky</a> <a href="/facts/Transistor%25E2%2580%2593transistor_logic/z4bvHotl">TTL</a> <a href="/facts/Bipolar_junction_transistor/9BMcGv5Q">bipolar</a> 64-bit <a href="/facts/Static_random-access_memory/Pmyo4V5e">SRAM</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:10" href="#fn:10"><sup>10</sup></a> </p><p>Busicom's management agreed to Hoff's new approach<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:11" href="#fn:11"><sup>11</sup></a> and the chips' implementation was led by <a href="/facts/Federico_Faggin/XIsoopIf">Federico Faggin</a> who had previously developed the Silicon Gate Technology at Fairchild Semiconductor. It was this technology that made possible the design of the microprocessor and the dynamic RAMs. The 4 ICs were delivered to Busicom in January 1971.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:12" href="#fn:12"><sup>12</sup></a> </p><p>In mid-1971 Busicom, which had exclusive right to the design and its components, asked Intel to lower their prices.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:13" href="#fn:13"><sup>13</sup></a> Intel renegotiated their contract and Busicom gave up its exclusive rights to the chips.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:14" href="#fn:14"><sup>14</sup></a> </p><p>A few months later, on November 15, 1971, Intel announced the immediate availability of the first microprocessor <a href="/facts/Chipset/0xU3kbVI">chipset</a> family, the <a href="/facts/Intel_4004/kAoetjSU">MCS-4</a> micro computer set (all from the Busicom design) with an advertisement in <i>Electronic News</i>. </p> <h2 id="broughtons-of-bristol">Broughtons of Bristol</h2> <p>Broughtons of <a href="/facts/Bristol/nLwyoDTG">Bristol</a> was a company selling and maintaining a broad line of business machines up until they ceased operations in 2016.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:15" href="#fn:15"><sup>15</sup></a> </p><p>They used to buy most of their equipment from Busicom and bought the Busicom trade name when Busicom went bankrupt in 1974. </p> <h2 id="external-links">External links</h2> Wikimedia Commons has media related to Busicom. <ul><li><a href="http://www.4004.com">Busicom 141-PF simulator + Original firmware: disassembled and commented</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.intel4004.com/busicom.htm">Busicom history</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.busicom.com/">Busicom Business Machines</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/busicom___ncm.html">Busicom Corp / Nippon Calculating Machine Corp</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/agreement.htm">Agreement between Intel & NCM</a></li> <li><a href="https://spectrum.ieee.org/chip-hall-of-fame-intel-4004-microprocessor">Chip Hall of Fame: Intel 4004 Microprocessor</a> (<a href="/facts/IEEE_Spectrum/tmbdcCq5">IEEE Spectrum</a> website)</li></ul> <h2 id="references">References</h2> <ol> <li id="fn:1"><p>Augarten, S. (1984). Bit by Bit. Ticknor & Fields. <a href="/wiki/Stan_Augarten" target="_blank">/wiki/Stan_Augarten</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:2"><p>Stine, G. H. (1985). The Untold Story of the Computer Revolution. Arbor House. p. 163. <a href="/wiki/G._Harry_Stine" target="_blank">/wiki/G._Harry_Stine</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:3"><p>Augarten, S. (1984). Bit by Bit. Ticknor & Fields. <a href="/wiki/Stan_Augarten" target="_blank">/wiki/Stan_Augarten</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:4"><p>Reid, T. R. (1984). The Chip. Simon and Schuster. pp. 141–142. <a href="/wiki/T._R._Reid" target="_blank">/wiki/T._R._Reid</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:5"><p>"4004_e | CPU Museum". www.cpu-museum.com. September 23, 2015. <a href="http://www.cpu-museum.com/4004_e.htm" target="_blank">http://www.cpu-museum.com/4004_e.htm</a> <a href="#fnref:5" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:6"><p>"Nippon Calculator / Busicom HL-21". www.vintagecalculators.com. <a href="http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/busicom.html" target="_blank">http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/busicom.html</a> <a href="#fnref:6" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:7"><p>"Busicom LE-120A & LE-120S". www.vintagecalculators.com. <a href="http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/busicom_le-120a_-_le-120s.html" target="_blank">http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/busicom_le-120a_-_le-120s.html</a> <a href="#fnref:7" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:8"><p>Augarten, S. (1984). Bit by Bit. Ticknor & Fields. <a href="/wiki/Stan_Augarten" target="_blank">/wiki/Stan_Augarten</a> <a href="#fnref:8" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:9"><p>Aspray, William (1994-05-25). "Oral-History: Tadashi Sasaki". Interview #211 for the Center for the History of Electrical Engineering. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. Retrieved 2013-01-02. <a href="http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Tadashi_Sasaki" target="_blank">http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Tadashi_Sasaki</a> <a href="#fnref:9" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:10"><p>1969 - Schottky-Barrier Diode Doubles the Speed of TTL Memory & Logic Computer History Museum. Retrieved September 23, 2011. <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1969-Schottky.html" target="_blank">http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1969-Schottky.html</a> <a href="#fnref:10" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:11"><p>"Intel/Busicom Agreement". www.xnumber.com. <a href="https://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/agreement.htm" target="_blank">https://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/agreement.htm</a> <a href="#fnref:11" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:12"><p>Faggin, Federico; Hoff, Marcian E.; Mazor, Stanley; Shima, Masatoshi (December 1996), "The History of the 4004", IEEE Micro, 16 (6), Los Alamitos: IEEE Computer Society: 10–19, doi:10.1109/40.546561, ISSN 0272-1732 <a href="/wiki/Federico_Faggin" target="_blank">/wiki/Federico_Faggin</a> <a href="#fnref:12" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:13"><p>Reid, T. R. (1984). The Chip. Simon and Schuster. pp. 141–142. <a href="/wiki/T._R._Reid" target="_blank">/wiki/T._R._Reid</a> <a href="#fnref:13" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:14"><p>Reid, T. R. (1984). The Chip. Simon and Schuster. pp. 141–142. <a href="/wiki/T._R._Reid" target="_blank">/wiki/T._R._Reid</a> <a href="#fnref:14" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> <li id="fn:15"><p>"Busicom Business Machines". Broughton & Co. (Bristol) Ltd. <a href="http://www.busicom.com/" target="_blank">http://www.busicom.com/</a> <a href="#fnref:15" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li> </ol>