electronic calculator from 1963 -- pretty impressive

[JRD77VET]

Pretty ingenious memory to make it work

An astonishing old calculator - Numberphile - YouTube

[99 pewtercoupe]

Is that DAB in the video?

[lspencer534]

Originally Posted by 99 pewtercoupe

Is that DAB in the video?

I think it is...SOB!

[mrvette]

I need watch this entire vid when I get a chance.....CBS is on with funny old shit now.....

and I have a lot to add over those early electronic shit......personal one on one....been a while....

[OddBall]

That was pretty interesting.

[StaticCling]

Very cool. That fella reminds me of Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

[mrvette]

Back in the 60's, my Father could add up over $$100k bux in his head, monthly billings for insurance....many times correcting the totals the head office admin. had on the calculator paper tape.....she would miss a key once in a blue moon.....

and for massive billings, they had an early automated billing machine, made by Smith Corona Marchant ...SCM.....read last month's paper punch tape to type up the billing, tractor feed 8x11 3 copies thick....LOUD machine...the gal that ran it was deaf....seriously hired because she was in the room with the door closed when the machine was running....it typed about 130 wpm, used a rack of letters similar to an old manual typewriter, not the IBM Selectric Ball setup, so it was cumbersome with the carriage going back and forth the return was fast and nasty....

the machine was donated to the Smithsonian sometime in the 70's I saw it on display there.....

[JRD77VET]

Originally Posted by OddBall

That was pretty interesting.

Originally Posted by chinaski

Very cool. That fella reminds me of Doc Brown from Back to the Future.

My step dad Don worked for Texas Instrument starting around 1970 or 1971. He was one of the folks who designed the circuitry that made the pocket calculator possible.

I sent him a link to the video and asked him if he worked with Bob Regan ( who designed the calculator in the video). Here's Don's reply to me.

Never met him. He was one of the guys who made the first electronic calculators to replace the mechanical calculators. I was in a time after him when the industry was focused on replacing the technology the early guys used (transistors) with the "new" technology called "integrated circuits." Each "integrated circuit" had as many as a thousand transistors in a package that was the same size as one early transistor. With these integrated circuits Texas Instruments replaced the large box seen on this video with a small piece of plastic that fit in your hand. At the time it seemed almost like magic.

THEN, the newer generation, took that little calculator and expanded its capability into what is today called a personal computer. Computers were shrunk from taking an entire room into a box the size of the calculator in this video. Today, what was in that box fits inside my cellphone. Being part of this "revolution" was exciting.

I can relate to the guy in the video. He looks back to the first use of electronics in the modern age. I have a "museum" of old calculators and personal computers in my workroom where I do like he is doing, turn them on and study them. He focuses on the transistor age, I study the integrated circuit age that I was in. As with him, I find it exciting with moments reflection on the excitements of my past life.

[snide]

My Dad made a living off of Friden machines.

[mrvette]

I remember in Jr. High? going on a tour of a Navy facility on the shore of the Potomac river.....can't remember the name, damnit....

anyway they had a computer there with literally hundreds of 6SN7 vacuum tubes in it.....and I just looked wide eyed.....

much less the flow tanks and model ships.....

[JRD77VET]

Originally Posted by snide

My Dad made a living off of Friden machines.

Don worked for TI designing calculator circuitry, then it was off to the west coast and worked for Intel designing computers.

The off to the East coast ( MA )working for Compac designing computers for them.

[GS Ragtop]

That was VERY cool. So was the extended video.

Back in the early 70's, I was a tech working on the early ATM machines. While we didn't have piano wire memory (!), we did have 8K memory boards that were 24" square, with copper wiring intricately wound around small metal donuts. 'Core' memory boards -- we typically had 2 per ATM machine as our program fit in about 13K or so.

We loaded the operating program into those early ATM machines using rolls of punched paper tape, fed into a Teletype ASR-33. Typically one byte per second. It took about 4 hours to reload the program (and about a quarter second to crash it again with certain hardware problems). We'd get the first roll started, then go have a couple of beers at the local bar. Come back to load the second roll and get more beers. 4 hours later, up it came.

The stone age...

[JRD77VET]

Originally Posted by JRD77VET

My step dad Don worked for Texas Instrument starting around 1970 or 1971. He was one of the folks who designed the circuitry that made the pocket calculator possible.

I sent him a link to the video and asked him if he worked with Bob Regan ( who designed the calculator in the video). Here's Don's reply to me.

Never met him. He was one of the guys who made the first electronic calculators to replace the mechanical calculators. I was in a time after him when the industry was focused on replacing the technology the early guys used (transistors) with the "new" technology called "integrated circuits." Each "integrated circuit" had as many as a thousand transistors in a package that was the same size as one early transistor. With these integrated circuits Texas Instruments replaced the large box seen on this video with a small piece of plastic that fit in your hand. At the time it seemed almost like magic.

THEN, the newer generation, took that little calculator and expanded its capability into what is today called a personal computer. Computers were shrunk from taking an entire room into a box the size of the calculator in this video. Today, what was in that box fits inside my cellphone. Being part of this "revolution" was exciting.

I can relate to the guy in the video. He looks back to the first use of electronics in the modern age. I have a "museum" of old calculators and personal computers in my workroom where I do like he is doing, turn them on and study them. He focuses on the transistor age, I study the integrated circuit age that I was in. As with him, I find it exciting with moments reflection on the excitements of my past life.

In emailing and texting back and forth with my Stepdad Don, I mentioned I had a TI-55 calculator and wondered if he wanted it.

Turns out he would like to have it so I shipped it off to him. He got it today and was really excited to get it. I had the original box, the case, the charger and both books for it.

It was $38.88 brand new in 1977 which equates to just over $200 in 2017 money.
( photo below grabbed off the 'net )

[DAB]

Originally Posted by mrvette

I remember in Jr. High? going on a tour of a Navy facility on the shore of the Potomac river.....can't remember the name, damnit....

anyway they had a computer there with literally hundreds of 6SN7 vacuum tubes in it.....and I just looked wide eyed.....

much less the flow tanks and model ships.....

David Taylor center

[StaticCling]

Originally Posted by JRD77VET

In emailing and texting back and forth with my Stepdad Don, I mentioned I had a TI-55 calculator and wondered if he wanted it.

Turns out he would like to have it so I shipped it off to him. He got it today and was really excited to get it. I had the original box, the case, the charger and both books for it.

It was $38.88 brand new in 1977 which equates to just over $200 in 2017 money.
( photo below grabbed off the 'net )

I remember my grandfather having something like that in the early 80's. I was always fascinated with the red LED display when I was a kid. I have my dad's Hamilton 'Digital' LED watch from the 70's. Still works! Eats batteries though! I remember always pushing the button to show the time and dad getting annoyed.

[Sea Six]

Originally Posted by JRD77VET

In emailing and texting back and forth with my Stepdad Don, I mentioned I had a TI-55 calculator and wondered if he wanted it.

Turns out he would like to have it so I shipped it off to him. He got it today and was really excited to get it. I had the original box, the case, the charger and both books for it.

It was $38.88 brand new in 1977 which equates to just over $200 in 2017 money.
( photo below grabbed off the 'net )

My Dad had that exact calculator. It got to where the batteries wouldn't hold a charge but you still could use it with the charger.

That was the very calculator that, as a ten year old, I discovered things like

58008

58008618

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Sea Six

My Dad had that exact calculator. It got to where the batteries wouldn't hold a charge but you still could use it with the charger.

That was the very calculator that, as a ten year old, I discovered things like

58008

58008618

Can you please esplain???

[Sea Six]

Type the numbers into any calculator.


Then turn it upside down for hours of entertainment.

If you're a ten year old.

[JRD77VET]

Originally Posted by chinaski

I remember my grandfather having something like that in the early 80's. I was always fascinated with the red LED display when I was a kid. I have my dad's Hamilton 'Digital' LED watch from the 70's. Still works! Eats batteries though! I remember always pushing the button to show the time and dad getting annoyed.

All of us pooled our money to get my Grandfather a Texas Instrument calculator for Christmas in 1972. Us kids gave what we could and my parents and Aunt & Uncle came up with the rest. The TI 2500 "Datamath", the first calculator sold by Texas Instruments retailed for $149.99 in 1972

.

[Sea Six]

IIRC that device or one similar to it had a slide switch that turned the "decimal point" on and off. It wasn't a floating decimal point. It was just an LED light that turned on at a point left of the last two digits.

You entered all data without a decimal point.

The decimal indicator, if you used it, might have been appropriate for dollar and cent calculations. Nevertheless we were very impressed as it replaced the old noisy adding machine my Dad used to have.