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Victor 3900 Desktop Calculator

Victor 3900

The Victor 3900 was way ahead of its time from a technology standpoint, utilizing very early MOS (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor) Large-Scale Integrated Circuits to implement its logic. This was in 1965, at a time when all other calculators were using discrete transistors, or a few small scale bipolar integrated circuits. The Victor 3900 was the first electronic calculator offering from Victor Comptometer, a company that was noteworthy for its large line of dependable mechanical and electromechanical adding machines and calculators. Unfortunately, while the electronic design of the 3900 was sound, business conditions at General Micro-electronics, the company that developed both the MOS IC technology that machine the machine possible, as well as fabricating the calculator itself, led to the Victor 3900 having a rather short market lifetime, with somewhere between 1000 to 2000 of the machines being produced. The 3900 provided 20 digit capacity, automatic floating decimal, CRT display that showed the content of two of three memory registers, along with the working registers of the machine. It provided the basic four math functions. The machine had accumulation functions to add or subtract products and/or quotients from either of two accumulator-style memory registers. A third memory register (not displayed) was a store/recall-only register.
For more information about the development of the Victor 3900, see the Old Calculator Museum essay: The Victor 3900 - History's Forgotten Miracle.
Victor 3900 Specifications

Manufacturer: Victor Comptometer
Model Number: 3900
Manufactured In: USA
Date of Introduction: October, 1965
Price at Introduction: $1,825
Display Technology: CRT, 5 lines
Logic Technology: 29 MOS Large Scale IC devices made by General Micro-electronics
Digits of Capacity: 20
Decimal Modes: Full Floating Decimal w/thumbwheel selectable roundoff position
Math Functions: Four Function
Memories: Two accumulator-style memory registers (I & II)
One non-displayed store/recall memory register
Constant: Addition, Subtraction, and Multiplication
Size: 20" wide, 11" deep, 7 1/2" high
Weight: 24 pounds

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