Busicom

The Nippon Calculating Machine Corp was incorporated in 1945 and changed its name in 1967 to Business Computer Corporation, Busicom. Due to a recession in Japan in 1974 (see 1973–1975 recession), Busicom became the first major Japanese company in the calculator industry to fail. Originally, they made Odhner type mechanical calculators and then moved on to electronic calculators always using state of the art designs. They made the first calculator with a microprocessor for their top-of-the-line machines and they were the first to make calculators with an all-in-one calculator chip, the Mostek MK6010, for their line of inexpensive machines.

One of their last mechanical calculators is the HL-21, an Odhner type machine. Their first calculator with a microprocessor is the Busicom 141-PF. Their entry based calculators, the Busicom LE-120A (Handy-LE) and LE-120S (Handy), were the first to fit in a pocket and also the first calculators to use an LED display.