Casio

Casio Computer Company, Limited (カシオ計算機株式会社, Kashio Keisanki Kabushiki-gaisha) is a multinational electronics manufacturing company headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, cameras, musical instruments and watches. It was founded in 1946, and in 1957 released the world's first entirely electric compact calculator.

History

Casio was established in April 1946 by Tadao Kashio, an engineer specializing in fabrication technology. Kashio's first major product was the yubiwa pipe, a finger ring that would hold a cigarette, allowing the wearer to smoke the cigarette down to its nub while also leaving the wearer's hands free. Japan was impoverished immediately following World War II, so cigarettes were valuable, and the invention was a success.

After seeing the electric calculators at the first Business Show in Ginza, Tokyo in 1949, Kashio and his younger brothers (Toshio, Kazuo and Yukio) used their profits from the yubiwa pipe to develop their own calculators. Most of the calculators at that time worked using gears and could be operated by hand using a crank or using a motor (see adding machine). Toshio, Tadao's brother, possessed some knowledge of electronics, and set out to make a calculator using solenoids. The desk-sized calculator was finished in 1954 and was Japan's first electro-mechanical calculator. One of the central and more important innovations of the calculator was its adoption of the 10-key number pad; at that time other calculators were using a "full keypad", which meant that each place in the number (1s, 10s, 100s, etc...) had nine keys. Another distinguishing innovation was the use of a single display window instead of the three display windows (one for each argument and one for the answer) used in other calculators.

Calcium silicate

Calcium silicate (often referred to by its shortened trade name Cal-Sil or Calsil) is the chemical compound Ca₂SiO₄, also known as calcium orthosilicate and sometimes formulated 2CaO.SiO₂. It is one of a group of compounds obtained by reacting calcium oxide and silica in various ratios e.g. 3CaO•SiO₂, Ca₃SiO₅; 2CaO•SiO₂, Ca₂SiO₄; 3CaO•2SiO₂, Ca₃Si₂O₇ and CaO•SiO₂, CaSiO₃. Calcium silicate is a white free-flowing powder derived from limestone and diatomaceous earth. It has a low bulk density and high physical water absorption. It is used in roads, insulation, bricks, roof tiles, table salt and occurs in cements, where it is known as belite (or in cement chemist notation C₂S).

It is used as an anti-caking agent in food preparation and an antacid. It is approved by the United Nations' FAO and WHO bodies as a safe food additive in a large variety of products.

High temperature insulation

Calcium silicate is commonly used as a safe alternative to asbestos for high temperature insulation materials. Industrial grade piping and equipment insulation is often fabricated from calcium silicate. Its fabrication is a routine part of the curriculum for insulation apprentices. Calcium silicate competes in these realms against rockwool as well as proprietary insulation solids, such as perlite mixture and vermiculite bonded with sodium silicate. Although it is popularly considered an asbestos substitute, early uses of calcium silicate for insulation still made use of asbestos fibers.