jaymen

I came across an article on the first desktop calculator, developed at Electrosolids Corperation. Turns out they had more than one pressing issue in addition to problems with one of their Solidtronics products, Ellie, the talking doll. The fallout saw the sale of the calculator project, and the handoff of the Space Control project. These guys were just too far ahead of their time as it turns out; they had products that later became quite popular. Read the short paragraph below describing the fate of their calculator design:
Unfortunately, during the time that the
prototype was being built, Electrosolids had embarked on an aggressive project
to build a high-power inverter for a customer who had very tight technical
requirements. A tremendous amount of money was invested in the development of
this power supply. As it turned out, the final product did not meet the
specifications of the customer, and it seemed no amount of rework would get the
device to work as expected. The customer canceled the order leaving
Electrosolids in a real cash bind. The company needed money. Coincidentally, the
calculator prototype was pretty well perfected, and running reliably. Funds were
such that there was no way to turn the prototype into a production reality, so
it was decided to try to sell the calculator prototype and design to an
established mechanical calculator company, in hopes that enough money could be
raised to help save the company.

We are lucky that one Mr. Space Control, that being Zel Ritchie, was there to carry on.