Vintage Calculators

[BusyBee]

I do have an old Binatone LED scientific calculator (Scientific Slide Rule - Art. No. 02-4465) which I first used. It used 3 x AA batteries, although had a socket for a wall wart. I used an old 9V type and fitted a regulatorfor 4.5V as I found batteries did not last long. It worked very well for an early model scientific. For general use I use my Casio fx-115 which I bought later. No batteries here and simple to use.

Tracy

[Refugee]

I have been to the flea market today and a glut of vintage calculators reminded me of this thread...
I was offered one of them for a fiver but I could not be bothered to cart it home and get told off for buying "junk".

[BusyBee]

This thread has reminded me about the freeby calculators that many suppliers used to give away as promotions (similar to the way they give pens away, but in a more limited way). I did have some, one of which I have just found. It has 'Wordperfect' branding, so was possibly supplied advertising the software. It will date to the time when Wordperfect was the flavour of the month. It still seems to work, but the display has dicky segments. They were rather cheap and nasty, even in their day.

Tracy

[Terry]

The first electronic calculator I ever saw was when I went to work for The Stock Exchange in September 1969.

As well as the Cable TV system I went to work on, a computerised paging system and a 4,000 line PABX also came under our department's remit.

The Stock Exchange Council, in their wisdom, had decreed that the annual fee for each of these services was to be charged on a daily basis for any period which didn't coincide with the Stock Exchange accounting year.

As all three services went live 44 days before the end of the year, the problems that caused started from day one, hence the electronic calculator!

It cost around £400 and was the only one in the organisation - the Finance Department used to beg a loan of it for a couple of days at the end of each accounting month!

[djrm]

Unlike Refugee I did succumb to temptation when I saw these old calculating machines. I think the one at the top is like those I used at school. The other is older and quite cute and I bought it for no other reason. Want to see more ? ...
   

[peter scott]

I have a Brunsvega like this one.


I can remember sitting a statistics exam at university where there was a whole room full of students operating calculators of this type. It was a nightmare because for operations such as multiplication and division you had to turn the handle multiple times until it rang a little bell.
The problem was that with other bells going off around you you weren't sure whether it was your bell or not.

Peter

[radioman]

I used to have a Friden EC-130 like the one described here :-https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/friden130.html
During a 'tidying' phase I gave it away to a friend who said he collected calculators.
Don't know if he's still got it or not but I wish I'd kept it now !
I've still got my dad's Tealtronic K-80M. This is a VFD desk type but it wasn't working properly the last time I switched it on.
Also have a Texas Instruments TI-3500 desk type and the first calculator I bought a Commodore SR7919 which still works although the on-off slide switch needed some attention.

Andy

[radioman]

Sorry, I think I made a mistake with my previous post (blame my memory)...
I think it was the the successor to the EC-130 I had - the EC-132 https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/friden132.html
Not quite so 'collectable' but still a good looking machine with it's CRT display.

Andy

[ppppenguin]

Many years ago (late 1980s?) I was at a BVWS Harpenden meeting and noticed that Rothampstead research had an open day. It's only across the road so I went and had a look. Apart from the fields of experimental crops and labs there was a display of calculators. They had always needed to do a lot of statistics and so bought the latest and best. Somehow the old machines had never been chucked out. The earliest was a "Millionaire" from about 1880. the latest was an HP programmable of some kind.

I do hope that the collection has been preserved.

[Gingpeakin]

Luckily I was given one of these when I was at school.  One of my dad's friends rescued it from an office clearout.
I had to replace all of the capacitors in the EHT multiplier and apart from quite a few dry joints it seems OK. It's an interesting machine and there is a good write up on the old calculator site:

https://oldcalculatormuseum.com/friden130.html
               

Ging