The search for new products led the company to investigate calculators, and in 1964 the company produced the world’s first transistor calculator. ![]() Sharp was founded in Osaka in 1912 and the company initially produced all kinds of metal products, settling on radios and TV sets during the 1950s. Wada studied chemical engineering at Doshisha University near Kyoto during the 1950s, after which he joined Sharp Corporation (then known as Hayakawa Electric Company) at its Central Research Laboratory in Osaka. The lowly EL-805 pocket calculator, launched by Sharp in May 1973, is the direct ancestor of today’s flat-screen displays, be they on a TV, your smartphone, your laptop, microwave, or just about any other electronic device you care to name. His achievement? Wada developed the world’s first liquid crystal pocket calculator. Nishi was preceded by another hidden pioneer of modern electronics who just so happened to have a background in chemical engineering: Tomio Wada. But what few people will appreciate is the contribution chemical engineers have made to these must-have items.Īnd it’s not just about the lithium ion batteries, developed by the chemical engineer Yoshio Nishi at Sony during the 1980s ( see tce 836, February 2011). ![]() ![]() The rioting underlined how desirable these items are and how important in a society driven by possession of consumer goods. THE images of looters and rioters across England breaking into shops and making off with flat-screen TVs, laptops, smartphones and the like have gone around the world. Claudia Flavell-While explores the surprising ancestry of modern electronic gadgets, and how a chemical engineer called Tomio Wada made it all happen
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