1980 · LED Scientific Calculator · Work 954 of 1,871
An assembly hall in a factory block in Kwun Tong in Hong Kong, a long work table with open black wedge-shaped calculator cases in a row, shallow trays of loose cream and turquoise-blue key caps, soldering irons in wire holders, at the end of the row one finished calculator thirteen centimetres long with a wide dark red display window, two red keys and rows of cream and turquoise keys, all key caps plain, smooth and unmarked, two young women in pale blue smocks, seen from directly behind, faces turned fully away, their hands setting a small green circuit board into a case, bare pale green walls, barred windows, cool fluorescent light.
What it was used for
Hong Kong assembled what others designed. One example in the Smithsonian is the National Semiconductor NS 4520 "Scientist" of the mid-1970s: 35 keys, 8-digit red LED display, reverse Polish notation, no separate battery compartment, and a sticker on the underside reading "Made in Hong Kong"; the same machines were also sold under the Novus name. The colony's business was in volume, not in design: according to a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, electronics rose from 2.4 per cent of Hong Kong's total exports in 1964 to 9.5 per cent in 1970, 12.4 per cent in 1973 and 13.9 per cent in 1980.
What was new
No novelty can be shown for this work, and that is the point. The NBER study describes Hong Kong's electronics as an assembly business: semiconductors and integrated circuits were at first only assembled there and only later made from raw material. It also describes the growth in "three-year cycles", that is, in products in demand for about 3 years. The share of 13.9 per cent in 1980 fell to 13.5 per cent in 1981 and 10.7 per cent in 1982. The barb: whoever only assembles shares the product's cycle - and Hong Kong's exports of calculating machines fell from 549 million HK dollars in 1979 to 308 million in 1982.
What the sources leave open: The title names no single device; what is described is the documented type. The Smithsonian example NS 4520 is dated to about 1976, not 1980, and carries no price. The percentages refer to Hong Kong's electronics exports as a whole, not to calculators; table 12.8 lists calculating machines separately only from 1977, in millions of HK dollars. The study warns that electronic watches and toys were first counted as electronics, later elsewhere. The entry stays thin.