Unitrex 14PPMD printing calculator with operation manual

Unitrex 14PPMD Printing Calculator

The Unitrex 14PPMD is a 1977 desktop electronic printing calculator: 14-digit vacuum fluorescent display and a paper-tape printer in the same case. AC powered, built in Hong Kong, sold as MODEL 14PPMD ELECTRONIC PRINTING CALCULATOR. In the MicroBasement it sits next to the Unicom 1620R. That machine is display-only; this one leaves a tape.

The Creator: Unitrex / Eiko

Unitrex was a brand of Eiko Business Machine Co. They sold desktops and pockets through the 1970s under Unitrex, Frontier, and Signet, and as OEM boxes for other names. Early Unitrex 1200 desktops used Cal-Tex and Mostek chips; by the mid-1970s the line included printing models (10PPM, 12PPM, 12PPMD, 14PPMD, 16PPMD). The 14PPMD is the 14-digit display-plus-printer of that family.

Development and Introduction

Calcuseum dates the 14PPMD to 1977. UL listing 272E. By then a VFD-plus-printer desk machine was a commodity: four functions, percent, memory, a tape for the audit trail. It was not a scientific or programmable. Handheld LEDs and later LCDs took the consumer side; offices kept printers a few years longer.

Machine Specifications

Exact decimal and rounding slides vary by unit. Read them off the case when you photograph it and we can add the switch list.

Place in the MicroBasement

Unicom 1620R: 16 glowing digits, no paper. Unitrex 14PPMD: 14 digits and a tape. Busicom 141-PF: the same idea a few years earlier with a 4004 inside. Three answers to "put the total where the bookkeeper can see it."

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