Rockwell
Rockwell, USA.
In 1967 the aircraft manufacturer North American Aviation amalgamated with the engineering company Rockwell Standard to form North American Rockwell Corp. In 1973 the company was renamed Rockwell International.
Rockwell's Autonetics division was a leading developer of integrated circuits, especially for defence systems, and from it was formed North-American Rockwell Microelectronics Corporation (NRMEC). In the late 1960s it diversified into calculator integrated circuits and was a pioneer in manufacturing LSI MOS calculator ICs, used in early Sharp Calculators.
Another semiconductor manufacturer American Micro-systems Inc. moved into calculator manufacture under the trade name Unicom, and was bought by Rockwell in 1972 as part of its diversification programme. Initially, calculators continued to be sold under the Unicom name, but this was soon changed to the Rockwell name.
In 1973 Rockwell bought out the Sumlock-Anita company, the largest British calculator manufacturer, to which it had been supplying calculator integrated circuits. Manufacture of Anita calculators, also with Rockwell branding, continued at the Sumlock-Anita factory in Portsmouth, in southern England, where some of the Rockwell hand-held calculators were also manufactured.
Rockwell also had a consumer electronics subsidiary called Lloyd's Electronics which sold a wide range of models of its Accumatic calculators. A few of these were manufactured by Rockwell though most were sourced from Asia.
In mid-1972 Rockwell started to ship LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) calculators to Lloyds, Sears Roebuck and Rapid Data, which were sold under their names. These were the first successful use of LCDs in calculators - See the Lloyd's Accumatic 100 and the Rapid Data Rapidman LC1208.
Many Rockwell hand-held calculators share a very distinctive casing design, as in the 8R below. These models were very successful and are common. The earlier models were mainly assembled in Mexico, though there was some assembly in England, but later models originate from Japan. Rockwell also manufactured some desktop models, but these are not very common.
Around 1977, during the great slump in calculator prices, Rockwell quit consumer electronics, including calculator manufacture, to concentrate on its core aviation, military, and industrial business, including the Space Shuttle.
Examples of Rockwell calculators
