Contex 230

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The Danish company Contex was known worldwide for its electromechanical calculators with an interesting design. Seeing the efforts of the competition to start the production of digital calculators, they started to design the D series desktop calculators in cooperation with Dutch company Philips. These had a very similar appearance to their previous models; their production started in 1971. The simpler, smaller-capacity models were soon followed by more sophisticated versions, one of their notable representatives was the Contex 230 from 1973. With its 12-digit capacity, free memory register, and fixed-point notation with adjustable rounding, it represented the top category of four-function machines. Its specialty — in addition to the keyboard’s undeniable similarity with mechanical appliances — is the Philips-made Pandicon tube, which is actually a seven-segment, multi-digit cold-cathode (Nixie) display tube. Despite their best efforts, Contex soon went bankrupt due to Japanese dumping, and Philips stopped producing such integrated circuits.

It is worth mentioning that the Hungarian Elektronikus Mérõkészülékek Gyára (EMG) also concluded a cooperation contract with the Contex company, on the basis of which the production of modern thermal printers was started in Budapest. Unfortunately for us, nothing went as planned: the quality of the devices that came out of production, which had been started after a multi-year delay and at many times the cost, was below criticism, so the HUNOR 129 calculator with a high-quality design, equipped with that printer, with the same structure as the Contex 330, was only around for a single year during its term, it disappeared without a trace from the offices, but even from the public consciousness.