Dr. Francé Rodé

video | 16 min — mini-documentary of my father’s role in high-tech

France Rode Documentary

My father, Dr. France Rode (1934-2017), was a Slovenian immigrant to the US and engineer best known for his pioneering work on the first handheld scientific calculator, the HP-35, which Richard Nixon proudly carried on his trip to China as his prime demonstration of American technology. This 16-minute documentary above, produced by the American-Slovenian Education Foundation, tells his story.

At the Tech Museum of Slovenia

The Tech Museum of Slovenia includes my father in their exhibit of Slovenian technology pioneers around the world. In 2022-2024 a portion of the exhibit made its way around the US. See exhibit photos and read about him in this excerpt of the exhibit catalog or see the whole catalog.

The Story of the HP-35 Calculator

This article from Consumer Electronics only mentions my father in the middle, but it offers an interesting overveiw of the context and massive impact this calculator had on not only the engineering community but also on consumer electronics in general. Students were selling their cars to obtain one of these calculators when they first came out!

Click here to read The HP-35: an Origin Story

It would be difficult to overestimate how disruptive the HP-35 was. As Lewis Terman stated when he named it an IEEE Milestone in 1997: “[it] accelerated the pace of technological change and revolutionized the engineering profession. . . [and it] served as the model for nearly every handheld device since; everything from Mattel Electronic Football (1977), to the Gameboy (1989), to the Palm Pilot (1997), to the Nokia 1100 (2003), to even your current iPhone.

Click the image above to open the PDF.

Learn more about France Rode.

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