Panasonic 1000 Calculator

This stylish little machine is one of the sleekest-looking machines in the museum, with its futuristic styling common to Panasonic's early electronic calculators. As with most Panasonic calculators, there's a "common" model number listed on the machine, in this case, "Panasonic 1000" listed on the front panel of the calculator, and an "internal" model number listed on the serial number tag -- JE-102U. The reason why Panasonic had two model numbers for the machine isn't clear. One possibility was that the marketing people didn't think that the internal model number was very marketable, and insisted on a more consumer-friendly model number for them to sell the calculators by, with the internal model number used for factory and service reference.

This machine bears a striking resemblance in one way to some Commodore calculators of a little later vintage, at least in terms of the keycaps. Take a look at the Commodore US*14 and Commodore US*10 exhibits, and you'll note that there are some major similarities. It makes one wonder if perhaps some of Commodore's calculators weren't made by Panasonic for Commodore? In fact, Commodore did have an OEM relationship with Panasonic, and some of Commodore's machines were at least designed by Panasonic.

Panasonic 1000 Display

The Panasonic 1000 is a ten-digit, four function machine, with keyboard-selectable constant for multiplication and division. It operates in fixed decimal mode, with a slide switch on the keyboard panel that selects 0, 2, 3, 4, or 6 digits behind the decimal point. The display uses ten individual DG-10S vacuum-fluorescent display tubes made by Futaba. These same tubes are used in another calculator in the museum, the Commodore C112.

Futaba DG-10S Display Tube

Each of the display tubes uses a ten-segment rendition, allowing for a centered '1', and for the '4' to have a 'tail' (see display photo above). Each tube also has a 'tick' at the top left of each digit (which isn't used in this application), and a right-hand decimal point. At the right end of the display panel, a single neon indicator behind a red plastic jewel in the shape of a '-' lights to indcate that the number in the display is negative. The circuitry of the calculator provides for the suppression of leading and trailing zeroes. The keyboard uses magnet-activated reed switches, giving the keyboard a nice quality feel, and also makes for reliable keyboard action even after all these years.

Panasonic 1000 Internals

Most all of the circuitry of this machine is on the main circuit board. Six early Large Scale IC's made by Mitsubishi make up most (but not all) of the brains of the machine. The chips are mounted in sockets, which are situated behind the module that makes up the display subsystem.

The Calculator Chipset

The chipset consists of parts numbered MA8131, MA8132, MA8133, MA8134, MA8135, and MA8136. Another LSI chip is mounted (without a socket) on the keyboard circuit board, again a Mitsubishi part, with part number M58241. This chip likely scans and encodes the keyboard. The remaining components consist of discrete transistorized circuitry for driving the display, a couple of Small-Scale IC's, (Mitsubishi M58279) for glue functions, and a transistor-regulated power supply. The dating on the parts indicates that the machine was built sometime in the 1971 timeframe.