Sliderule-Calculator missing link

The other day, my Institute for the Future colleague Paul Saffo showed me a stunning specimen he had acquired for his technological cabinet of curiosities. Manufactured in 1975, the Faber-Castell TR3 features a calculator on one side and a sliderule on the other. Paul photographed the TR3 and put it in historical context on his blog. From the post:

At first blush, the TR3 looks like the proverbial missing link, still dripping wet as it crawls out of the analog ocean onto the digital shore. And certainly proof, if any was needed, that technologies evolve. But the story is not quite so simple. For starters, the slide rule companies took calculators seriously, but only as slide rule substitutes. They assumed that calculators would slowly replace slide rules in the niches where slide rules were sold -- pleces like college bookstores. The slide rule manufacturers thus never guessed that calculators would become a must-have item for ordinary folk who would flock to purchase them in department stores, book stores, drug stores and even supermarkets. This meant that instead of a gradual shift that the slide rule makers could easily manage, the change was exponential and far beyond what they could possibly respond to.

But still they tried, and the TR3 was part of the effort... In the end, the TR3's calculator was far behind the competition, and the slide rule was superfluous as slip-stick jocks defected in favor of TIs, Commodores and HPs.

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