Retrocalc

I’m a total nerd for vintage industrial design. The Retrocalc app was my tribute to the awesomeness of early electronics. With each calculator faithfully rendered in 3D, Retrocalc ranked #1 in New & Notable on the AppStore. A pet project I loved.

There are some projects you do just because they’re cool.

Retrocalc was one of those.

There’s something about those handheld electronics of the 1970’s and 80’s that I find aesthetically beautiful: VFD screens. Those “space age” aesthetics. Old school ‘computer’ fonts. Molded plastic frames. Physical buttons. The whole thing. Not nearly enough stylistic credit goes to those early days of vintage handheld gizmos.

There was also something stylistically awful about the original calculator app which shipped with iOS. I couldn’t wait to replace it. I wanted skeumorphism.

If I wanted an app slicker than Apple’s old calculator app, I was going to have to make it.

I wasn’t sure how it would go over commercially, but it did get nice review coverage globally, and shot up briefly to #1 in the App Store’s “New & Notable”. Did it ever earn enough to justify my time spent making it? No. Not really. But but making it was a lot of fun.

I stopped maintaining the app, and later-day App Store requirements would have required significant code and graphics overhauls. Eventually I let the app sunset. Today, there are a half-dozen unrelated apps all piggybacking on the name. This was the original “Retrocalc”.

There’s not much more to say about Retrocalc other than to show off a few more pics: