An early implementation of engineering notation in the form of range selection and number display with SI prefixes was introduced in the computerized HP 5360A frequency counter by Hewlett-Packard in 1969.
[1] Based on an idea by Peter D. Dickinson[2][1] the first calculator to support engineering notation displaying the power-of-ten exponent values was the HP-25 in 1975.
Between 1976 and 1980 the same exponent shift facility was also available on some Texas Instruments calculators of the pre-LCD era such as early SR-40,[6][7] TI-30[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] and TI-45[16][17] model variants utilizing (INV)EE↓ instead.
On the other hand, engineering notation allows the numbers to explicitly match their corresponding SI prefixes, which facilitates reading and oral communication.
This is closely related to the base-2 floating-point representation (B notation) commonly used in computer arithmetic, and the usage of IEC binary prefixes, e.g. 1B10 for 1 × 210, 1B20 for 1 × 220, 1B30 for 1 × 230, 1B40 for 1 × 240 etc.