THE FUTURE
Four main factors are keeping the calculator alive. One is that designs have been successively optimised to purpose, producing a level of function and capability that even tailored apps struggle to emulate. The second is the high price of current smartphones and tablets while the third is that some people just find it easier, quicker and more precise to operate a physical device than a touchscreen.
The Desk Calculator
Desk Calculator: Back to the Future? Photo credit: Tsiakkas Office Solutions
Last, and arguably most important, ‘dumb’ calculators have over the decades earned a place in school and university exam rooms that remains closed off to ‘smart‘ tablets and phones for the foreseeable future.
The desktop calculator, too, soldiers obstinately on, keeping its place in the office by dint of its ergonomic advantages and ‘print as you go’ function.
It would be ironic indeed if the humble desktop adding machine remains standing after the last sophisticated pocket calculator has found its glass case in the Museum of Doomed Technologies.