"It's a free market," said a money changer at the Africodia Bureau here between attending clients from a desk littered with an electric calculator and with wads of cedis.

He cast a longing eye at his electric calculator but decided it was too much like the White Knight's mouse trap.

An electric model, the Mercedes Euklid 30, was released circa 1945, though it may not have been the company's first electric calculator.

Near it, on its own stand, was a small electric calculator.

James Scanlon Jr., director of the Office of Surplus Activities, rattled off a list of available items: desks, paper supplies, electric calculators, lamps, bookcases, plumbing supplies, paint, copying machines and chairs.

It was founded in 1946, and in 1957 released the world's first entirely electric compact calculator.

After seeing the electric calculators at the first Business Show in Ginza, Tokyo in 1949, Kashio and his younger brothers used their profits from the yubiwa pipe to develop their own calculators.

In 1987, after seeing the electric calculators at the first Chinese Business Show, Bai began developing pocket and scientific calculators.

The soroban won 4 to 1, with the electric calculator prevailing in multiplication.

At the IBM pavilion, electric typewriters and a fantastic machine called the "electric calculator" that used punched cards, were on display.