A few years ago, I bought a scientific calculator in a dollar store, for $1. Bill Dudley This email is free of malware because I run Linux. On Sun, Apr 16, 2017 at 12:33 PM, Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
I had a "Bowmar Brain" calculator in high school that my Dad gave me. When calc prices dropped to nothing, it seemed fit for me to dissect the Bowmar and see what was inside and it never got put back together. I think I thought I could hook it up and drive it like a math coprocessor or something. That never happened.
I just ran across this paragraph in the MITS Wiki linking Bowmar to MOS Technology, and then C=: MOS supplied Bowmar calculator ICs... Bowmar imploded, I suppose one of the cripplers of MOS... leading to C= buying MOS.
Bowmar Instrument Corporation introduced the "Bowmar Brain", a four-function pocket calculator, in September 1971 and the $179 calculator sold over 500,000 copies in the first year. Bowmar then developed the "901B" calculator that was priced at $120.[30] In September 1972, Texas Instruments (TI) introduced the TI-2500 portable four-function calculator that also sold for $120.[31] The 901B and the TI-2500 both used the TI TMS0100 family of "calculator-on-a-chip" integrated circuit. TI was now directly competing with their IC customers. Other semiconductor companies such as National Semiconductor and Rockwell began selling calculators. Commodore Business Machines and other office equipment companies also got into the market. A frenzied price war started. By early 1974, Ed Roberts found he could purchase a calculator in a retail store for less than his cost of materials. The larger companies could sell below cost to win market share. Bowmar lost $20 million in 1974 and filed for bankruptcy.[32] Commodore acquired their IC supplier, MOS Technology. Texas Instruments won the price war but their calculator division lost $16 million in 1975.[33]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Instrumentation_and_Telemetry_Systems