The company which manufactured Aristo calculators was Dennert & Pape, founded in 1862 by Mr. Johann Christian Dennert in Hamburg, Germany, and initially produced geodetic instruments. In 1872 the company became the first manufacturer of slide-rules because the war with France had reduced the number of slide-rules that could be imported. It was the first manufacturer of slide-rules in Germany.
In 1936 the company started to manufacture slide-rules from a dimensionally stable plastic called "Astralon" rather than mahogany laminated with celluloid number-scales. At the same time these slide-rules were sold under the new trademark "Aristo".
The name of the company itself was changed in 1948 from Dennert & Pape to Aristo
With the appearance of electronic calculators in the late 1960s-early 1970s, especially the Hewlett-Packard HP-35, sales of slide-rules dropped dramatically, so Aristo started to manufacture electronic calculators themselves. Two of the target audiences were teachers and their pupils because Aristo had contacts in the school authorities from their slide-rule activities.
Alas, they were not successful enough so that in 1979 the company was dissolved by Hans Dennert, the great-grandson of the founder.
Aristo produced a series of electronic hand-held calculators, many with a very distinctive styling, as shown below.
Some examples of Aristo calculators
Text & photographs copyright, except where stated otherwise, © Nigel Tout 2000-2025.
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