The calculator is 40 years old

The handheld calculator is 40 years old this year - and models are now part of the IT collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The museum in fact has the "original 1967 prototype from Texas Instruments, which weighed 3 pounds, was encased in aluminum and ran on batteries. At the time the calculator was developed, existing models were heavy desktop devices -- not handhelds."

The development team included TI engineer Jack Kilby who died in 2005. Kilby invented the integrated circuit at TI in 1958 and later won the Nobel Prize for his work.

See Computerworld.