Setting a New Standard
Monroe LA5-160 Calculator
This four-function machine combines large capacity and small size. Monroe calculators were made at their headquarters in New Jersey, and also in Holland.
Setting a New Standard
Jay Monroe’s goals were not modest: a simple-to-use, portable, powerful four-function calculator with a keyboard and proof of input accuracy.
In 1912, he and Frank Baldwin formed Monroe Calculating Machine Company to realize those goals. Baldwin’s electro-mechanical calculators, some with as many as 12,000 parts, revolutionized scientific and technical calculations and stimulated competition.
Chief Lens Designer Gordon H. Cook, Cooke Optics
Academy Award winning lens designer Gordon Cook uses both a cylindrical slide rule and a desk calculator. Each had its own advantages and disadvantages.
View Artifact DetailFriden SRQ-10 calculator
Friden’s calculators were the first to directly compute square roots.
View Artifact DetailMarchant "ACRM" Calculator
A typical “full-sized” technical calculator. The Marchant company was founded in Oakland, California in 1911. Their chief designer, Carl Friden, left to start his own company in 1934.
View Artifact DetailA “human computer” at Langley Aeronautical Laboratory
The technician reads data from photographic film and then performs initial calculations. The Friden calculator was among the most powerful available in 1952.
View Artifact DetailMonroe Calculator
Frank Baldwin invented the moving carriage that dominated technical calculator design for decades. An architect by profession, he held patents in several unrelated fields.
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