Sharp EL-106

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Early Japanese pocket calculators, due to their small size, could only be made with LED displays. As soon as domestically produced multi-digit vacuum fluorescent tubes (VFDs) were made in series, Sharp replaced LEDs with them. Meanwhile, Sharp also began manufacturing LED displays. Using these, the first calculators were the specially designed EL-101 (with penlight batteries) debuted in the second half of 1975, and then the EL-102 (with 9V battery) and their extended variants (with root or memory functions). Due to the normal batteries and the standard design of the keyboard, these calculators have not been as successful as the slim, elegant western models, which were much more designed as a status symbol two to three years ago (“Executive” types, e.g. Sinclair Executive, Interton VIP 10, etc.) Over the next two years, they returned to low-cost models with standard build.

EL-104, the first model was built with a Hitachi chip, and required minimal additional components than ever before — just a few capacitors and resistors. The next two models, the EL-106 (with sign change instead of square root) and EL-204 (with memory) have used calculator chips from Texas Instruments. As a result, these calculators operate differently than almost all other Sharp model: e.g. in case of overflow, or erroneous calculation, the display flashes; or the negative sign displayed immediately before the number. Production of LED calculators at Sharp ended in 1977 due to the spread of liquid crystal displays.