The Bulgarian Pocket

1976 · Bulgarian Export Calculator · Work 948 of 1,871

The final inspection table of an electronics works on the edge of Sofia on an autumn morning, two hands in white coat sleeves reaching in from the bottom edge of the frame and setting a flat pocket calculator thirteen centimetres long into a long row of identical ones on dark blue cloth, a yellow plastic frame around a finely grained black top plate, at the top a red window with a soft red glow, then yellow, light grey and black keys, every key plain smooth and unmarked, a grey wooden crate waiting at the end of the table, tall factory windows onto a wooded mountain under a pale sky.

What it was used for
The Elka 101 was built by Isot in Bulgaria and is dated to about 1976 in the Science Museum Group collection. It is a pocket calculator of 25 x 70 x 135 mm and 0.14 kg in plastic, metal, paper and electronic components, preserved with its box. The museum records that before 1989 Bulgaria had one of the largest electronics industries in Eastern Europe, but that in the 1970s it had to import integrated circuits to stay competitive. The calculator made at home, the circuits inside it bought abroad.
What was new
In the 1970s Bulgaria built pocket calculators but, according to the Science Museum Group, had to import the integrated circuits to compete. That is where the barb sits - the country with one of the Eastern bloc's largest electronics industries was an importer of the one part that mattered.

What the sources leave open: A single source: the Science Museum Group object page (1999-748). It dates the object "c1976" and gives no technical data and claims no first; no novelty of the device is documented, and no company or archive source on circuitry, display or production numbers was found. Bulgarian museum or combine sources on the Elka 101 were not reachable in this run, so the entry stays thin.

Further reading