The Handheld Calculator Turns 40

Ian Lamont writes "The handheld calculator turns 40 years old this year, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History has officially added to its collection examples of the first two programmable calculators, the TI-58 and TI-59. The museum already has the original 1967 'Cal-Tech' prototype, which weighs three pounds. At a ceremony at the Smithsonian yesterday, Jerry Merryman, one of the members of the TI team which developed the calculator, said that the project was started without a set budget and was something that 'we did in our spare time.' Antique calculators have a devoted following; news of a contest celebrating the 35th anniversary of the HP-35 slide rule calculator brought hundreds of fans out of the woodwork to reminisce about the pros and cons of various 70s' era calculators. There are a lot of Web resources devoted to these devices, including the Old Calculators Web Museum, where you can see pictures of everything from the Bohn Contex Model 10 Mechanical Calculator ('apparently the design of the machine caught the attention of the Soviets') to TI's first scientific calculator, the SR-20 ('keyboards were prone to bounce even when new')."

Light

[LBt1st (709520)]

40 years and I still can't find one with a backlight. I can't be the only one who codes in a dimly lit cave.

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[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

40 years and I still can't find one with a backlight. I can't be the only one who codes in a dimly lit cave.

Ha ha, I never thought about it before, but you're right. I've never seen a calculator with a back light. But in the age of the web, it is possible to find such a beast [saveateagle.com]. But it is surprising that it's not more common.

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[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

Oops, never mind. The boneheads on that web site messed up their description... it's for a digital watch.

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[niko9 (315647)]

40 years and I still can't find one with a backlight. I can't be the only one who codes in a dimly lit cave.

Ha ha, I never thought about it before, but you're right. I've never seen a calculator with a back light. But in the age of the web, it is possible to find such a beast. But it is surprising that it's not more common.

It's not RPN you insensitive clod!

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[ddrichardson (869910)]

The early sinclair ones used bright red LEDs - not only could you use it in the dark you could confuse late night wanders looking for a certain type of "entertainment" if you used it near a window.

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[lelitsch (31136)]

Wasn't there a TI calculator with back light in the early 80s? I think I used one of the TI-3x series with a back light button at some point in high school?

I'm sorry...I just can't refrain

[beadfulthings (975812)]

In the early Seventies there was a calculator advertising jingle that was so stupid it has stayed with me for all these years: You can't go wrong with Rockwell, They're really such a treat. They've got BIG GREEN NUMBERS, And little rubber feet.

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[veganboyjosh (896761)]

thanks for sharing that pearl of a catchy jingle. just earlier today, i was thinking about how unpleasant it is to have a head clear of jingles, slogans, advertising copy.

you sir, have restored my faith in humanity.

seriously, though, i'm glad i only had to read it once, so hopefully it'll only stick around for another hour or so...that is a horribly catchy tagline.

Slashdot summaries are the worst

[hurfy (735314)]

Was gonna say i thought my TI-55 was the first (it just wasn't useful as one) but the article ACTUALLY says: the Smithsonian expanded its collection to include two of the first programmable calculators, the TI-58 and TI-59.

Two of the first != the first two

I bet someone did better on math SAT than verbal....

I still use both my TI-55 and TI-30. Had to hack the TI-55 to use a regular battery after the second nicad died. Recently bought one on ebay to try and restore mine but the battery pack wasn't rebuildable :(

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[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

I still use both my TI-55 and TI-30.

TI sucks! HP Rules!

(Most people on Slashdot won't get this joke)

Re:Slashdot summaries are the worst

[onkelonkel (560274)]

Infidel. in Hell![enter]Burn[enter].

(Still have my TI-59.)

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[Detritus (11846)]

I'd be more impressed if you had a working TI-59. TI had some good ideas, but the quality of their calculators was often horrible. I bought a few of their early models and they all had short lifetimes. I've had much better luck with my HP calculators. Of all the ones that I've owned, only one has failed.

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[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

Of all the ones that I've owned, only one has failed.

My 41C of 1980 vintage is still going strong. :)

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[Detritus (11846)]

That's the only model that died on me. It did last 20+ years, so it wasn't that bad. My HP-16C is still going strong, and only on its second set of batteries.

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[treeves (963993)]

I had a TI-55 too, and IIRC it had only like 32 program steps maximum, is that right?
I had mine around sixth or seventh grade, so about 1977 or 1978.

failing the verbal SAT

[OrangeTide (124937)]

The TI-55 was just a few month AFTER the TI-57, TI-58 and TI-59. (which were released at the same time)

So in this case two of the first is the same as the first two. If you ignore the earlier SR series programmable calculators as not being as significantly programmable as the 55, 57, 58 and 59.

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[CrazyTalk (662055)]

Ahh, nostalgia time. My TI-55 was the first "computer" that I ever programmed - it got me interested in the field.

Professor owl?

[Hao Wu (652581)]

Anyone recall the name of that school-marketed calculator that had Mr. Owl dressed up like an Oxford professor?

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[jim_deane (63059)]

I HAD/HAVE THAT. I now must root through my parent's basement.

Talking to my Parents

[Gates82 (706573)]

Both of my parents remember (my dad fondly, my mother not so much) the several nights which followed my dad getting this new calculator. My dad stayed up all night playing with the calculator just because of how cool it was.

--
So who is hotte? Ali or Ali's sister?

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[scottrocket (1065416)]

And they played music on your AM radio - that's multitasking for you!

Re:Talking to my Parents

[networkBoy (774728)]

My dad was the first in his office to get an RPN HP calculator (aeronautical engineer). Showed it off to everyone, real proud of it, etc.

Week later he was back to using a triple slide rule... I had taken apart his precious, at the age of three.
A month of talking with apps engineers at HP and they sent him a bag of spare parts along with an exploded diagram (for free) and he was able to re-assemble the thing. Still works, and he still has it. I am still not allowed to touch it (nearly 30 years later).

-nB

The halcyon days of the first programmable ones...

[Dr. Manhattan (29720)]

I remember a test (late 1980s) where you could use a calculator. The first (halfway affordable) programmable calculators had come out, and I had one. I'd put together a program to generate determinants of 3x3 matrices, and one of the questions was: "Calculate the determinant of this matrix." I just plugged in the numbers, wrote down the answer, and moved on. Even at the time, I was thinking, "They're either not going to allow calculators much longer, or else change the questions."

You could squeeze cheat sheets into those things, too, though the memory was a bit limited...

toys

[e**(i pi)-1 (462311)]

Programmable pocket calculators have become awfully clumsy to use. It would be nice if one could move to iphone type interfaces or include a (maybe stripped down) computer algebra system. They survive only because they have become cheep,rugged and robust and can be used in schools early on. I loved to play with these toys when I was younger [harvard.edu]. But thats what they have remained: toys.

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[DragonWriter (970822)]

would be nice if one could move to iphone type interfaces or include a (maybe stripped down) computer algebra system.

Couldn't you just compile one of the existing open-source computer algebra systems to an existing Linux-based phone or handheld platform?

Re:toys

[Constantine XVI (880691)]

The HP50g, TI89, and TI-Nspire CAS all have CAS systems (though the basic form factor is mostly the same as their 48g, 84+ and Nspire kin)

PS: I reccomend the 50g myself. It's definitley a bit on the advanced end (and has RPN as an option, which is what attracted me to HPs in the first place), but shouldn't be a problem for you judging by your homepage URL

7734

[rueger (210566)]

Thinking back thirty-five odd years, I remember a friend with an impossibly cool HP, RPN of course, and a built in teeny card reader; I still recall the *click* of the keys. But what sold me on my first digital calculator in high school was realizing that you could type in numbers, turn it upside down, and spell out words. Sort of.

Re:7734

[OECD (639690)]

5318008

Two of TI's First, They Mean.

[TaleSpinner (96034)]

The first programmable hand-held calculator was Hewlett Packard's HP-65. The SR-52 came a year later. HP then brought out the HP-67, and TI followed a year later with the TI-59. HP then came out with the HP-41 handheld programmable with slots for adding interfaces including HP-IL allowing the calc to handle all kinds of control and data-collections chores in labs. TI followed suit with the TI-88 the following year. I mean the year after that. No, it was the next year. The year after? As a matter of fact, TI never did come out with competition for the HP-41.

But there is no doubt that the first programmable handheld was the HP-65. If they don't have that in their collection then they ain't got the first.

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[rossz (67331)]

I still have my hacked hp-41CV. The keys are starting to act a little strange, and I no longer bother spending hours programming it. Now days, it sits on my desk for when I need to do some quick math. I love RPN!

I always hated the TI calculators. They were cheaply made and had all kinds of annoying problems, like the inability to read mag cards written from a different calculator even though it was the exact same model.

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[Constantine XVI (880691)]

If you weren't aware, HP does still make calculators. They sort of slipped up on the keyboards a while back, but their new ones are much better. I believe their big ones are the 50g (which I have), and the 35s (very little relation to the original HP-35, but has a keyboard very similar to your 41). Naturally, they're both RPN.

Re:Two of TI's First, They Mean.

[TaleSpinner (96034)]

RPN was the only reliable way to be sure both you and the calculator agreed on the order of the computation. For a long time you could not walk up to an algebraic notation calc and expect to be able to use it to produce known-good results. Many of them were only "semi-algebraic" where you would enter 2+2= to get 4 but 30 SIN to get sin(30) - which is RPN. It was a long time before you could do "SIN(30)". Calcs also differed in the number of pending operations they would support, and because of implied priorities these did not match up with the "levels of parens" number. Only with RPN could you know exactly how to structure a problem and feed it in, how to deal with intermediate results, and how to get a reliable result that could be replicated on the same or other RPN models. TI machines weren't even consistent within their own calc line, never mind anyone else's.

RPN also required fewer keystrokes, and the advantage mounted with increasing problem complexity. Also, stack machines were more amenable to programming because the state of the calc could be known exactly, whereas with a TI the state was encoded in the pending ops stack, the paren stack, and then the program area. Jumping into such a mess was an adventure, to say the least.

And in honor of its birthday

[(arg!)Styopa (232550)]

SS378008

hahahahaha.....ok, it was funny in the 70's.

Re:And in honour of its birthday

[Funkcikle (630170)]

55318008 is better.

Casio fx-115

[certsoft (442059)]

I still have the Casio fx-115 scientific calculator I bought like 20 years ago in Innsbruck. Solar Cell powered and still works great, although a bit grungy.

A trip down Memory Lane

[Aging_Newbie (16932)]

My wife and I got married in 1974 and after looking at our wedding money spent $120+ for a TI SR-10 [vintagecalculators.com] calculator by mail order from a discounter. I remember thinking that the price couldn't fall much more so it was definitely time to buy it. A wonderful device it was ... really cool and useful.

TI-59 or bust!

[spaceyhackerlady (462530)]

I save my pennies the year I graduated from high school and splurged on a TI-59, which not only served me well, but factored numbers too (one of my favourite programs I wrote for it). Cards, spaghetti code, the works. I actually defined a small virtual processor, wrote an emulator for it that ran on the TI-59, and hand-assembled programs for that virtual processor (which resembled a PIC in a number of ways, now that I think of it). Geek city, huh?

It was only much later that I confirmed that 52579 is prime

Curta - handheld calculator from 1947

[Cliff Stoll (242915)]

Curt Herzstark designed the Curta handheld calculator while he was a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Upon release in 1945, he started a company to manufacture these mechanical handheld calculators.

Herzstark recognized the importance of user interface ... he designed it to be handheld. The main cylinder fits within the hand, and the input sliders were made to be set by fingers. In a foreshadowing of computer architecture, he used complimentary arithmetic to do both subtraction and addition.

Although crank-driven, a Curta is surprisingly fast at the basic four functions. This is because you can rotate the output register to do automatic multiplies by powers of ten.

Made in Lichtenstein, the Curtas were superbly machined, with a feel comparable to a high quality Nikon F camera.

His peppermill calculators were sold from 1947 until 1972; today, they're mostly collectors items. But I use one to run my Klein Bottle business.

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[ReKleSS (749007)]

Interesting timing - a few hours ago I came by this [blogsome.com], and read your article. Interesting stuff.

This is the device

[RogerWilco (99615)]

As none of the links in the article actually seem to link to a description/picture of the device, here is one for your enjoyment:

http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/texas_insturments_ti_58.html [vintagecalculators.com]

FIRST programmable?

[kocsonya (141716)]

> ... officially added to its collection examples of the first two
> programmable calculators, the TI-58 and TI-59.

Hm. The HP-65 came out in '74, the TI-58 and TI-57 in '77.

I had a TI-57 but I also had a programmable calculator one before that, a NatSemi Scientific-PR, which was a '75 machine, AFAIK.

The TI-58 and 59 are *not* the first programmable calculators by a long shot.

This brings back memories..

[the_rajah (749499)]

I was at T.I. as a calculator design Engineer from 1972 until late 1975 before moving over to the corporate research lab to work on magnetic bubble memories. I worked on several different scientific and business models and was the project engineer for the rare TI-150, the only handheld model to use a plasma (neon) display. I still have one of the prototypes here at my desk in good working condition. I did parts of the electrical design of the magnetic card readers for the SR-52 and SR-60 as well as parts of the main board design for the latter. All that and lots of work on other models, too. Fun projects, good people to work with and fond memories. If any of my old co-workers from that time are reading this, you can get in touch via the web site my nickname links to.

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[Detritus (11846)]

I can remember using those mechanical adding machines. The ones designed for business use weren't too bad, but if you wanted multiplication and division, the machines were huge, about the size of a typewriter. They must have been very expensive, due to the large number of precision parts. I saw many of them sitting on the shelves of the local office machine stores after the introduction of relatively inexpensive electronic calculators.

I built a Heathkit digital clock in the early 1970s, when those things

Re:I can hold an abacus

[veganboyjosh (896761)]

When my family and I were leaving Japan for good (we'd lived there on a military base) in 1990, we were at the airport, trading in all of our Yen for Dollars on the way out. The currency exchange was this little kiosk about the size of one of those old drive-thru film processing booths. Inside sat an old man and a bunch of money and counting machines.

We gave him all our Yen, change, etc... he poured the change into one hole, the bills stacked and sorted into some other machine, and out came a paper receipt, like an atm receipt. he counted the dollars, to make sure it matched the receipt.

Before he handed over the money, though, he took out his soroban (Japanese abacus, slightly different bead layout, but same idea) and checked the math of the computer on it. Then he handed us our money.

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[russellh (547685)]

Before he handed over the money, though, he took out his soroban (Japanese abacus, slightly different bead layout, but same idea) and checked the math of the computer on it. Then he handed us our money.

that's interesting. Gotta wonder what specific incidents, if any, were behind that. I travelled around Asia in the late 80s (while living in Indonesia) and in many, many places vendors used an abacus to calculate retail sale totals.

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[superpulpsicle (533373)]

I don't think the museum is complete until they mention the TI-8X series. It dominated the school sectors and did fractions! And the fraction results didn't come out to decimals, which makes it museum-worthy.

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[Constantine XVI (880691)]

My 83+ doesn't (by default, anyways)
Input on 83+:

(5/4)(3/2) 1.875

Input on HP 50g (because I love it so)

<< 5 4 / 3 2 / * EXPAND >> 15/8

I miss my HP11c

[localroger (258128)]

Faithful companion for 15 years, one day it finally died and I was unable to figure out why it wouldn't turn on. I have a TI-83 now, much more capable, but it just isn't the same. I still have the urge to punch 2 2 + ENTER to get a 4.

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[Tumbleweed (3706)]

Uh, did you change the batteries? :)

Lots of them available on eBay these days, though they're not cheap. There's the upgraded version of the 11 (I think it's the 14, but I can't remember right now) that I'm thinking about getting, and keeping my 11 around as a spare.

They have the new version out now for financial use, I think, with that nasty goldish colour; I'm hoping they come out with a new 11/14c version some day. These things obviously don't last forever. Perhaps a nice new solar powered version?

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[Constantine XVI (880691)]

TI sorta dominates the high school graphing calculator business. Their current flagship (the TI-84+) hasn't changed drastically from the 81, but their next in line (the Nspire) is completely from scratch (but I'll keep my RPN thank-you-very-much)