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Sharp Calculator Commercial #2 (ca early 1970s)

Commercial for the Sharp LC-8 (aka Sharp EL-8) calculator -the world's first battery operated portable calculator


This movie is part of the collection: Prelinger Archives

Sponsor: Sharp
Audio/Visual: sound, color

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: clr2sea - - January 14, 2009
Subject: HOW MUCH????????
This calculator is HOW MUCH?! Yikes! EEEEEEEEE! I screamed when I saw that price. Damn!

Reviewer: Robin_1990 - - February 18, 2008
Subject: Good Commercial
I'm sure that when this commercial was new, The product shown helped made many peoples lives easier. So, Good Product, Good Commercial.

Reviewer: Jeeper One - - March 2, 2005
Subject: Portable Color TVs Are The Size Of This Calculator.
Yes Virginia, we HAVE come a long way.

Reviewer: Spuzz - - September 11, 2004
Subject: I didn't know this was an ATM dispenser too!
A quick trip to the Inflation calculator reveals that the Calculator's price, if adjusted to 2003 inflation levels, would cost 1174.82.

After all, wouldn't you want to spend that money on an oversized, bulky sloppy LCD display??

Curiously, one shot shows the calculator spitting out a dollar bill. Didn't know they had ATM's in those days.. Portable ones too!

Reviewer: op712 - - August 9, 2004
Subject: The Price is Right, Pt.2
What's interesting is that with the price of this calculator, released in 1970, using the flourscent numerical displays (LED's/LCD's weren't invented yet) being priced this high, color TV's were just about the same price. Now, let's advance up 34 years, and this same calculator would only cost pocket change, yet the color TV's are STILL at this same price (only with bigger screens). Great little ad though to get society "wet nursed" into electronic gadgetry.

Reviewer: Wilford B. Wolf - - July 29, 2004
Subject:
Circa 1970 commercial for the Sharp LC-8, the first of the handheld calculators. Great close up shots of the early LED display (with its curious rounded sides, as opposed the more standard straight edged LCD we are used to today), keypad and relative size. It is hard to remember in this day and age that calculators in 1970 were only about 10 years or so removed from filling an entire room, or were an unweildly mechanical contraption. It was also really the first computerized device most people had contact with, though the notion of a calculator as a computer is no longer made.

Nowdays, you can get a device at half the size and half the price that play music, keep track of phone numbers, play games and whatever besides adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying numbers. We've come a long way...