Casio Film Card calculators

Last updated
Casio SL-800 Film Card, the thinnest solar powered calculator produced in 1983 CASIO SL-800 FILM CARD Calculator.jpg
Casio SL-800 Film Card, the thinnest solar powered calculator produced in 1983

Casio Film Card was a serie of credit card size ultra-slim solar powered pocket calculators produced in 1980s. Being the thinnest calculators in Casio's Slime Line serie it become electronic badge and promotional merchandise branded by banks, luxury brands, airways, railways and other companies.

Contents

Models

Data sources: official website, collectors websites.

Casio MG-770 Game & Melody (with the "Invaders" game, a number line version of Space Invaders game for calculators) CASIO ELECTRONIC CALCULATOR MG-770.jpg
Casio MG-770 Game & Melody (with the "Invaders" game, a number line version of Space Invaders game for calculators)

Mini Card

The Film Card serie predecessed by the Mini Card serie introduced in 1978 with the LC-78 Mini Card, a battery powered credit card size basic calculator with only arithmetic, square root, percentage and memory register operations. Most of the models in this serie has metal case in a landscape orientation and low-profile elastometric keypad with pushing plastic or metal caps, or silicone rubber keypad, also equipped with sliding swithes to power on/off and mode switching.

Film Card

The Film Card serie models commonly are less than 3mm tall ID-1 card size (85.5×54mm) designed in landscape orientation with a flat dustproof and waterproof keyboard with membrane switches, were addition button is double-wide. Casio noted " U.S. Pats. 4,121,284 4,371,923 4,942,516" on its back.

Casio SL-750 (all the same size buttons) CASIO SL-750.jpg
Casio SL-750 (all the same size buttons)
SL-763 (without square root button) Casio calculator SL-763 in 201807.jpg
SL-763 (without square root button)

Scientific calculators

Following the LC-78 Mini Card basic calculator, Casio developed same size scientific calculators:

Following the Film Card serie, a serie of ultra-slim scientific calculators introduced as well:

Other

Models of the Film Card sub-serie of SL (Slime Line) serie and similar cards also introduced in many series, were the most common model dissignation was 700.

Film Card style models by Casio Series
ModelSLBFCCBCCCVDCDC-EDIEZfxLCPNPWRDRTTHUC
700-+-++++++--±-----+
800+-----++----------
Other+-+-+-+-+++±++++++

C-800 Paper Card was version of Film Card calculator. D-50/60Desktop solar powered ultra-slim flat square calculators released in a style of branded dustproof and waterproof calculators of the Film Card serie.

TH-8 Crystal Cal was a version of the Film Card with a transparent resistive touchscreen keyboard (TH-10 is ID-2 card size; TH serie also relates to OH serie of overhead projectors calculators).

FM Card (battery powered RD-10, RD-11, RD-100), AM Card (battery powered RD-20, RD-21, and solar powered RD-220) and FM&AM Card (battery powered RD-30, RD-31) was series of credit card size FM/AM radio recievers with attachible headphones. As a part of these series introduced two side cards with a solar powered calculator on the opposite side:

Phone Card EZ-500/600 solar powered phonebooks in landscape orientation (instead of battery powered Phone Card EZ-200 phonebooks in portrait orientation).

Solar Data Bank DC-E700/E800 was a solar powered version of battery powered card size Data Bank DC serie of personal organizers, enhanced with permanent memory encryption protection.

Casio DC-665 Data Bank (with 3-line display and ABC and Japanese input) CASIO DATA BANK DC-665.jpg
Casio DC-665 Data Bank (with 3-line display and ABC and Japanese input)

Other ultra-slim battery powered models included various features of personal digital assistan:

Micro Card

Casio Micro Card serie introduced M-811 (also branded as "CASIO Lady" serie) and M-812 key chain calculators are the next generation (less than 5mm tall, a half of ID-1 card size) of Casio's Micro Mini M-810 and Micro Compact MC-811 battery powered pure arithmetic matchbox size calculators (15mm tall) [7] .

Technological impact

Casio development of Film Card serie finalized miniaturization of solary powered ultra-slim card size calculators technologies, competted at the time by:

SwissMicros DM-15C (9mm tall), an ID-1 card size version of HP Voyager HP-15C DM-15C.JPG
SwissMicros DM-15C (9mm tall), an ID-1 card size version of HP Voyager HP-15C

Discontinued by all major manuacturers in 2010s, [8] development of similar calculators continued by merchandise manufacturers and as electronic badge by DIY electronics makers. [9] Modern smallest solar and two way powered basic arithmetic calculators commonly fits to 6-11mm tall ID-1 card size:

Samsung SGH-P300 (followed by SGH-P310 model with 240×320 px colour display) was the first full featured camera phone in a size of the 8.9mm tall ID-1 card serie, having a built-in arithmetic calculator it also was J2ME MIDP 2.0 enabled feature phone allowing its users to install any advanced software calculator (scientific, programmable or even graphing) as a 3rd party MIDlet.

References

  1. "SL-760LC-BK | Practical Calculators (Credit card type)". CASIO Official Website.
  2. Casio Computer Co. Ltd (1992), Casio SL-760 LU, collections.vam.ac.uk
  3. 60th. CASIO Official Website.
  4. "Casio SL-800WE". collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk.
  5. "Casio SL-800 Film card Calculator - Calculator - Computing History". computinghistory.org.uk.
  6. EEVblog (2018-04-24). EEVblog #1078 - World's Thinnest Calculator Teardown! via YouTube.
  7. Very small or very very small. Popular Science magazine  : Noc 1977.
  8. "Casio Mini Card LC-78 Handheld Electronic Calculator | Smithsonian Institution". www.si.edu.
  9. "Low cost 'credit card size"' solar powered pocket calculator". collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk.

Manuals