Sharp Wondertopia WN-100

The WN-100 was the first of seven Wondertopia calculators created and produced by Sharp.

While well-known as a calculator manufacturer (the Elsi-mate series still endures today) along with many other products, they must have taken a look at how well Casio’s game calculators were being developed and marketed and figured they should get a slice of the lucrative gaming pie too!

It would be a few models before they went for a purely entertainment-based game calculator, with the first few versions being more statistics-friendly rather than being games for games’ sake.

With the WN-100, two of the three non-standard calculator functions were roll-the-dice and heads-or-tails which could hardly be considered fun from a gaming perspective. If you were doing a mathematics course in statistics (or applied math) having the ability to perform 100 coin tosses or dice rolls could help prove, or disprove, any statistical theorum you were presented.

The third ‘game’ was more of a reaction tester although, in all probability, was equally just a statistical tool if you were trying to determine the outcome of slot machine spins.

In any case, while ‘fun’ is always subjective, there are plenty of gambling applications that could be applied to the three games by an enterprising hustler with a WN-100 at hand.

These are the most common of a rare series of calculators and can occasionally be found in NOS condition, although it’s been a year or two since any have appeared on eBay.