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Handhelds Hardware Technology

The Handheld Calculator Turns 40 158

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the great-discoveries-through-spare-time-development dept.
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')."
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The Handheld Calculator Turns 40 More

The Handheld Calculator Turns 40

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  • I can hold an abacus (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    in my hand.

    • Re:I can hold an abacus (Score:4, Interesting)

      by veganboyjosh ( 896761 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @06:39PM (#20761537)
      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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by 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.
    • Does anyone know of a decent currently made RPN calculator? Two years ago when my old 48sx wore out, I started looking for one. Everything HP made looked like a cruddy TI. In a panic I found a 48g in good shape on craigslist. Eventually it will wear out. I cannot tolerate an algebraic calculator or a calculator without a nice big stack.
      • There are excellent programs available for the Palm Pilot that duplicate the functionality of HP calculators. One benefit is that you can get a decent Palm, plus the software (which typically sells for around $25) for less than a new scientific calculator today. I have yet to see any that duplicate all the functionality of my HP 28S, but they have more memory and better screens. And yes, RPN.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by oronet commander ( 1084507 )
        Hewlet-Packard keeps selling RPN calculators, such as HP-33s or HP-35s...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ukemike ( 956477 )
          The HP33s, HP49G+, and 48gll all have a tiny enter key in a weird spot. The HP35s is more along the lines of what I was thinking about. Thanks for the suggestion. It'd be nice to be able to see more than one number in the stack, and it's too bad that the stack is only 4 deep, but I'm glad they have gone back to a calculator designed for RPN use instead of having an optional RPN mode. I guess for now it's stick with my old 48 even though it's more of a calculator than I need. I'd certainly consider a 35
      • I've not used an HP calculator, but I use dc [gnu.org] on my laptop, which does arbitrary precision RPN calculations and runs on pretty much any POSIX-like system. If you can't get a dedicated calculator, there are a few hand-held *NIX machines available, and one of those should be able to run dc pretty nicely (just pick one with a decent keyboard).
    • Depends on the type of abacus, though. The Chinese suanpan is often a big unit that tends to hog a lot of desk space, while the Japanese soroban looks more practical for small desks.

  • Light (Score:5, Funny)

    by LBt1st ( 709520 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @06:01PM (#20761095)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by 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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 )
        Oops, never mind. The boneheads on that web site messed up their description... it's for a digital watch.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 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!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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?
    • Well, they were LEDs and filled with lead if you ever opened one up!

      But, we forgive you for being nearly a three-quarters of a million in /. time, which is reverse from normal. Hell, I waited a year and change. A slow adopter...
    • I got a TI-59 [wikipedia.org] off ebay a few years ago for like $10. It works great in my dimly-lit home office. I think it was hardly used because it looks new. The magnetic card reader/writer still works perfectly. It works so well that I bought another one as a backup for about the same price, also seems new.

      I rebuilt the dead battery pack with batteries from a cordless phone battery pack and it runs forever. I really like the glowing red displays of old calculators. Much easier on the eyes than LCD
  • I was expected something gasoline driven.

  • I'm sorry...I just can't refrain (Score:5, Funny)

    by beadfulthings ( 975812 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @06:07PM (#20761169) Journal
    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.
    • 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.
      • Though I don't often reply to replies, in your case I feel compelled. You may wish to read this story [online-literature.com] by Mark Twain, entitled "Punch, Brothers, Punch." It's a five-minute read, if that, and it may provide some insight into jingles in general. If it doesn't help, you can always think about me with pity. I've remembered the damned thing since childhood, and I know the tune as well.

  • Slashdot summaries are the worst (Score:3, Informative)

    by hurfy ( 735314 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @06:08PM (#20761189)
    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 :(

    • 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 (Score:4, Funny)

        by onkelonkel ( 560274 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @06:25PM (#20761393)
        Infidel. in Hell![enter]Burn[enter].

        (Still have my TI-59.)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by 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.

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

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

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by 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.

              • 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.

                My 16C is still fine, though that's in part because I rarely use it these days. It's probably been 15 years since I've done any serious assembly programming. :(

                I prefer the keys on the 41C though, so it gets the "quick calculation" work.

              • Yeah, my 16c too, on both counts. I've had it forever, and the one time I had to change batteries, I was wondering what that asterisk in the display was all about for months before I looked in the manual to find out it was low batteries. That must have been ten years ago. I wish all my stuff was this solid.
          • Hey, I've got a working TI-58 and some of the original programming sheets. Great machine, though the battery doesn't work anymore and the leds are flickering, but well, I can still enter my tic-tac-toe program and be beaten by a calculator (time per move: several minutes).

            Ah, they don't make them like that anymore.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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.
    • 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.
    • Ahh, nostalgia time. My TI-55 was the first "computer" that I ever programmed - it got me interested in the field.
  • In 1967 I was in the advanced development group of the GE radio receiver department. We set out to build a consumer electronic calculator. What we originally built wasn't very good having 6 digits and strange math but that wasn't what killed the progject. It was the marketing department saying nobody would ever want a home calculator because they already had adding machines. I later headed the project to create the first electronic clock radio. The LSI chip we designed had 826 transistors in it. That wa

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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

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

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by scottrocket ( 1065416 )
      And they played music on your AM radio - that's multitasking for you!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zaatxe ( 939368 )
        And they played music on your AM radio - that's multitasking for you!

        But that was before they DRMed the AM radio, then it would use all the calculator's capacity!

    • Re:Talking to my Parents (Score:4, Funny)

      by networkBoy ( 774728 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @09:58PM (#20762999) Journal
      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
  • Is it still a virgin and does it still live at home with its mother?
  • 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...

    • Similar ones are (or I hope by now they were) mandatory for the natural science students in Dutch high-schools, you have to use them on the final exam even! I think since the late 90s. You should be able to program a function in it and look at the graph it draws on the screen. This more or less diminishes math knowledge to knowing how to use the device (which I bet is a bitch), and not so much understand how to find the derivatives, zero points, etc of a function. But what bothers me the most is that these
      • These sorts of calculators can't replace actual maths knowledge, though. A graphics calculator can't find exact stationary points for

        y = 4sinx + 9
        or solve a system of linear equations without all of the coefficients given.
    • I'd put together a program to generate determinants of 3x3 matrices, and one of the questions was: "Calculate the determinant of this matrix."

      That would be the DET function on an HP-28 or HP-48. I wrote a program for my HP-28 in college that showed a four-dimensional hypercube rotating on the little LCD screen in real time. The matrix functions came in quite handy for rotational transforms.

      One of the things that surprised me was that the HP-28 was actually faster than the company's VAX for doing magnetic fi
  • 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.

    • 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?
    • Touch screens aren't a reliable and efficient way to input numbers. A well-designed keyboard with good tactile feedback is still the best way to go.

      What do you find clumsy about current programmable calculators? Most of HP's scientific calculators have had keystroke-based programming, and the current generation of graphing calculators can be programmed in C. Also, the vast majority of HP's calculator market has always been professionals.

      Come to think of it, you must not have heard of their calculator busine

    • Re:toys (Score:4, Informative)

      by Constantine XVI ( 880691 ) <trash@eighty+slashdot.gmail@com> on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @07:44PM (#20762107)
      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 (Score:2)

    by 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.

  • Two of TI's First, They Mean. (Score:5, Informative)

    by TaleSpinner ( 96034 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @06:39PM (#20761545)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by 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.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by 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.
        • What's the big deal with RPN? I've tried it a little bit, but never quite got the hang of it. I've always favoured standard notation. It's nice to be able to look at the equation on your calculator and verify that it's the same as the one on your paper. Just as a reference point, my calculator of choice is the TI-86. Bought it as a required tool back in my first year of university, and haven't found any reason to change.

          • Re:Two of TI's First, They Mean. (Score:4, Informative)

            by TaleSpinner ( 96034 ) on Thursday September 27, 2007 @02:46AM (#20764843)
            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.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by rossz ( 67331 )
              The person you are responding to is probably too young to have had to use calculators that didn't display the fancy equation in a multi-line high resolution screen. Yes, these days you can type in a very complex equation, verify that you didn't make a mistake by reading the screen, then get your graph printed out with one button. Back in my day, you had to stoke up the furnace to generate the steam before you could add two numbers together! And I had to walk to school five miles, up hill, both ways, in a
              • I certainly do remember those old calculators. Actually up until the last 2 years of highschool, I don't remember using a calculator much at all. Almost every cheap $10-$40 scientific calculator I've seen requires that you type the 30 before the 'sin'. At least all the older ones I used did. I haven't used those much since I got my TI-86. I see the advantage, when you don't have multiline displays, and you need to do all your calculations with a very simple chip, however I'll agree with you that it's no

    • As I remember, the TI-88 was actually made as a prototype (I saw pictures of it), but was later cancelled for some reason I never found out what it was. Maybe they just decided the educational market was more lucrative, or would be a better place to focus their efforts? They do make lots of calculators for schools.

      Some time ago I saw TI calculators used in math classes, and they can do much more than I had expected. One of the graphing calculators has a plug which can be used for real-time data collec

  • SS378008

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

  • 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 (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Cliff Stoll ( 242915 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @07:53PM (#20762173) Homepage
    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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ReKleSS ( 749007 )
      Interesting timing - a few hours ago I came by this [blogsome.com], and read your article. Interesting stuff.
    • Wow - I never thought to look you up on Slashdot. I really enjoyed "The Cuckoo's Egg" when I read it back in high school!
    • Just like the poster above me I find it funny stumbling upon you here on Slashdot after having read "The Cuckoo's Egg". Interesting how many IT "celebrities" are on Slashdot.

      By the way, I once got an A on a test in my German class (native German speaker) for completely ripping one of your more psychological/pedagogical articles apart. Sorry 'bout the bad karma.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Devar ( 312672 )
      You have no idea how much I want one of these things. They often run to about AU$700 on ebay.
      Dan, of Dans Data, found one for AU$40 [blogsome.com]. Lucky bastard!
    • Hey, I liked your article back in Scientific American on those. Thanks.
  • I really wish my wife hadn't locked my TI-58 into the print cradle with the power on. One of the program chips had a really nice power curve for predicting completion time for running speed by distance.

    I have two SR-10s (square, inverse AND square root -- woo hoo!). My original purchase has the box, charger, case and manual. The problem is that LED junctions burn out. Got a second one at a garage sale but it had a different junction burnt out.

  • This is the device (Score:3, Informative)

    by RogerWilco ( 99615 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @08:49PM (#20762551) Homepage Journal
    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? (Score:3, Informative)

    by kocsonya ( 141716 ) on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @09:33PM (#20762841)
    > ... 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.

  • Yes, but can these old calculators work out the modern answer (recently redefined by the calculation software industry leader as 100,000 [slashdot.org])?

  • This brings back memories.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by the_rajah ( 749499 ) * on Wednesday September 26, 2007 @11:17PM (#20763565) Homepage
    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.
  • All TI demonstrated in 1967 was a prototype that weighed 3 pounds. TI's own website [ti.com] places the introduction of their first "consumer electronics product", the TI-2500 Datamath, at 1972.
    this page [wikipedia.org] lists portable calculators appearing in 1970, and pocket calculators in 1971. No TI firsts there.
  • Hewlett Packard Model 9100B Electronic Calculator [oldcalculatormuseum.com] - well, an upgraded version of it that had a card reader and printer built-in. I bought it at a flea market back in the 80's for $3. It didn't come with a power cord, but I found one that fit and the thing actually worked (though I didn't have a manual). I would take it apart and put it back together frequently - the boards and keyboard were really cool and quite modular, and the thing weighed at least 30 pounds. The case was eighth-inch steel.
  • From This entry: [oldcalculatormuseum.com]

    Division is a bit more complicated, but still automatic. One oddity is the appearance of two divide keys on the keyboard. Apparently this was a result of another calculator company having a patent on a 'single key' divide function, which Friden's lawyers were concerned enough about to insist that the machine not have a single key for division. In fact, the 'left' division key is what actually triggers the division to take place, but, if actuated by itself, the resultant quotient will be the
  • I bought a TI SR-10 calculator in 1972. At the time, it was $99.95 plus tax. It did come with a zip up carrying case with a belt loop. I worked for months mowing lawns, picking up pop bottles, using the school's IBM 360 to handicap football games and selling the results, and so on to get that $100.

    Yes, I was the penultimate nerd on that first Monday of school following my glorious purchase. Pocket protector, calculator, horn-rimmed glasses, hair with permanent cowlicks...I was something to behold. BUT, I ha

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