The first single to be drawn from Kraftwerk’s then forthcoming seventh album, Computer World, and the first of the band’s 45s to be accompanied by a purpose-made video, the signature riff of ”Pocket Calculator” was composed, the musicians insisted, on the keyboard of, indeed, a Texas Instruments pocket calculator – an innovation immortalised in the lyric itself: “by pressing down a special key, it plays a little melody.” Whether or not that tale is true, ”Pocket Calculator” is an infuriatingly catchy confection, with a refrain that could have stepped out of an advertisement for the instrument itself: “I’m the operator with my pocket calculator… I am adding, I’m subtracting….” All of which conspired to confirm ”Pocket Calculator” as Kraftwerk’s first UK Top 50 hit since their breakthrough ”Autobahn”. -- Dave Thompson (allmusic.com)