Introduced in 1967 by Facit, this four-function calculator is a reversed pinwheel mechanical calculator with a 10-digit keybpard, 16-digit input register, a 9-digit revolutions register and a 16-digit accumulation register. The calculator has a back transfer function for repeat multiplications and is powered by a hand-crank. It was the very last manual calculator manufactured by Facit in Sweden, and was most likely used in Singapore offices around the late 1960s and 1970s. Facit AB, a manufacturer of mechanical calculators, was incorporated into ‘AB Åtvidabergs Industrier’ in 1922, and by 1932, it manufactured the first ten-digit calculator, ‘Facit’ which was a great success. In the 1970s and 1980s, Facit was bought over by Electrolux, then Ericsson, but eventually closed down in 1998. Its closure was largely attributed to its refusal to acknowledge the superiority of modern calculators, unwillingness to adapt and change to meet the new market demands, as well as its limited research and development resources.
