Arthur Clarke’s 9100A from Hewlett-Packard

The 9100A programmable calculator captured the popular imagination about what was possible in a way few technological breakthroughs ever achieve. In 1967, when Barney Oliver (left) and Bill Hewlett (center) showed science fiction author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke (right) a prototype of the device, he was fascinated by it because it matched his vision for the future. Two years later, he jokingly told an interviewer that the 9100A was the gift he most wanted for Christmas. His fans at Hewlett-Packard took up a collection and sent him one with a special plaque reading “Presented to Arthur C. Clarke by his many admirers at Hewlett-Packard, Christmas, 1969.” Clarke called it “the most wonderful present I have ever received at any Christmas.”