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casio cq-1

the cq-1 "computer quartz" from 1976 was the first time a quartz clock had been combined with a calculator. casio always innovators were quick to see the benefits of combing ideas. shown here is the slightly less common albino version. the elongated design was also rather novel. the unit was designed to sit on a desk and be a handy reference for dates, a clock, a stopwatch and, of course, a calculator. the unit came with a rather nice white, and red felt-lined box, whose lid could be turned upside down and act as a plinth on which to sit the calculator. some models also came with a pouch for the machine. because it used a vacuum fluorescent display, rather than liquid crystal, it could not afford to display the time continuously. except when in stopwatch or calculator mode, the display is blank. the time being displayed along with the day of the month and day of the week whilst "time" is held pressed. a small dot also beats the seconds.

the stopwatch measures to tenths of a second and runs to a maximum of 10 hours and has a lap timer. there are 4 alarms each with a different signature sound.

the calculator is basic, but the date and time calculation features are nice. dates can be subtracted to return day differences and also numbers of days can be added or subtracted from a date. always the date automatically calculates and displays the day of the week. it can handle dates up to 2099 which is nice, because some models of the same era couldn't cope with dates after 2000 (eg. aq-1500).

the unit is powered by a single AA battery but also from two g13 button cells that keep the time.

casio also released a sequel cq-2 calculator, which was very similar but had a futuristic styling (as perceived in the 70's).