Technico F-1

Does this Technico F-1 ExecuCard calculator look familiar to you? Inventa Electronics Corporation of Taipei, Taiwan started already in 1975 manufacturing and marketing calculators under the Technico brand. Inventa Electronics Co. is today known as Inventec Corporation, one of the World's largest manufacturers of mobile devices and computers. Inventa / Inventec was in the Eighties producing millions and millions of basic electronic calculators based on single-chip calculator circuits from established Japanese manufacturers like NEC, Sharp and Toshiba and Liquid Crystal Displays from Epson. Only a small fraction of these calculators were sold under the Technico brand, we know as of today 40+ corporate brand names for Inventa / Invetec OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) designs:

AEG Olympia, Asaflex, Benkson, Citizen, Clover, Commodoor, Digitech, Dixons, Dyna-Tone, Elco, General Electric, GKB, Gracia, Hanimex, Hercules, Idea, IMA, KMC, Levi, Lion, Logitech, MBO, M-Office, Olympia, Pacific Technology, Philips, Pierre Cardin, Precision, Printaform, Prinztronic, Privileg, Pulser, Quasar, Royal, Satek, Sears, Tecnosonic, Texas Instruments, Unisonic, Unitronic, and Vitronic.

Texas Instruments introduced in 1985 the TI CARD family with five beautiful calculators based on this Technico F1 design: TI-1783, TI-1784, TI-1785, TI-1786, and TI-1787. Mesbla S.A. added in 1986 finally an additional offspring, don't miss the beautiful TI-1786 available in Brazil. Comparing the TI CARD calculators with the Technico F-1 reveals two interesting differences:

Please don't miss our tear-down of the TI-1755 SLR and Technico SL-674CK.

If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.

© Joerg Woerner, May 16, 2020. No reprints without written permission.