Cette prudence dans le développement, malgré les tentations d’une conjoncture favorable, était tout à fait dans l’esprit du temps. De plus, elle correspondait aussi parfaitement à la nature réservée de mon père, que l’appât du gain ne motivait pas du tout. Il avait intériorisé le credo de son époque, « Safety first3 » ; il jugeait beaucoup plus imp

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We designated this first product the Model 200A because we thought the name would make us look like we’d been around for a while. We were afraid that if people knew we’d never actually developed, designed, and built a finished product, they’d be scared off. Our pricing was even more naive: We set it at $54.40 not because of any cost calculations bu

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What's worse was that inside the device each digit of a number was set on a separate register with its own mechanism that had to be repeated up to eight to 10 times. Then to compound the problem, subtraction meant duplicating all these in reverse, plus a special mechanism to handle carrying the number when necessary. No wonder a handheld calculator... See more