Jerry Merryman, who co-invented the handheld electronic calculator in 1965, is dead at 86.
Merryman told NPR’s “All Things Considered” in 2013, “It was late 1965 and Jack Kilby, my boss, presented the idea of a calculator. He called some people in his office. He says, we’d like to have some sort of computing device, perhaps to replace the slide rule. It would be nice if it were as small as this little book that I have in my hand.”
Merryman added, “Silly me, I thought we were just making a calculator, but we were creating an electronic revolution.”
Kilby died in 2005:
Microchip pioneer Jack Kilby Dies at 81
Photos: Smithsonia Museum; Montage: Matt Novak / Gizmodo