Retro Techno: Anita 8 Desktop Calculator

Published by djmick on July 11th, 2009

Anita Mk 8 desktop calculator

Back in the day you really needed a desktop to accommodate a desktop calculator. The first one to hit the market was the Anita Mk 8, made by the Uxbridge-based Bell Punch Company.

As big as a cash till (14.75×17.75×10in), weighing more than 30lb and with 100-plus buttons, it seems by today’s standards to be as modern as an abacus.

In fact it was a technological marvel, and a successful one at that. Despite its £355 price tag it sold nearly 10,000 in its first year.

Until the 1960s the majority of calculators were mechanical and clumped noisily through their calculations, but with the help of the engineer Norbert Kitz, the Bell Punch Company developed the world’s first electronic desktop calculator.

Silent, with a whizzy digital screen, it briefly took the world by storm. But at a time when science was moving at a blinding pace, it was soon technologically surpassed, and by the end of the 1960s the prevalence of handheld, battery-operated calculators rendered poor Anita a virtual antique.

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