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Vintage Calculators
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Baninated
Join Date: Jun 2009
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Thought you guys might dig this link:
Calculator company list
My grandma had a Datacal II by Corvus, which looked like this:
I remember using it on math homework in elementary school. So awesome, such a memory time warp!
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Boston, MA
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What did the M button on the old calcs do?
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Emergency Medicine & Urgent Care.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Northwest Ohio
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Originally Posted by bstone
What did the M button on the old calcs do?
The M button functioned much like the "M+" button in OS X's standard calculator app. Most calculators with an M button also had MR and MC (read and clear). M for memory.
But that Datacal that Rob posted actually has an "N" button, not an "M" button. I'd love to know what that one was for.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Your Anus
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My sig is 1 pixel too big.
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Central New York
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It was 1974 and my parents spent $140 for the latest Bowmar Brain. I was off to college and I would need it. It even did trig functions. The end of the sliderule for me. My freshman math professor hated the calculators. He had no idea how to use them. He still had one of those big six foot long sliderules hanging in the front of the classroom that he used. We were the first class year allowed to use them in the classroom.
$140 was a lot of money back in 1974. I don't think I spent that much for my books for the first year.
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macforray
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Northwest Ohio
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Originally Posted by macforray
It was 1974 and my parents spent $140 for the latest Bowmar Brain. I was off to college and I would need it. It even did trig functions. The end of the sliderule for me. My freshman math professor hated the calculators. He had no idea how to use them. He still had one of those big six foot long sliderules hanging in the front of the classroom that he used. We were the first class year allowed to use them in the classroom.
Speaking of slide rules, when I was in college we were shown a film in physics lab that was made in 1952. It was still relevant to the lab we were doing, of course, but the funniest part was where the guy in the video set up the calculation that was going to be done, and then said, "Let's get out our slide rules and figure out the answer." The video actually took five minutes to show him messing around furiously with the slide rule (it was a very complex calculation) and then he looked up at the end with a smile on his face. "The answer is 2." The whole class laughed at that one.
Of course, we had just punched the equation into our graphing calculators and knew the answer was 2 about 4 minutes and 50 seconds before the guy in the video did.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: California
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Originally Posted by Person Man
The M button functioned much like the "M+" button in OS X's standard calculator app. Most calculators with an M button also had MR and MC (read and clear). M for memory.
But that Datacal that ... posted actually has an "N" button, not an "M" button. I'd love to know what that one was for.
Nagger
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Administrator
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: San Antonio TX USA
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The very first calculator in my whole school district was purchased by our high school math department head; an HP 55, costing him almost $400. It was programmable, and could do so many different things...
I still have and use my HP-15C. Hard to beat RPN.
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Glenn -----OTR/L, MOT, Tx
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Washington state
Status:
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I have the following within reach:
Casio FX-115D Super FX Scientific calculator
Casio CM-100 computer math (does binary, octal, hex, and decimal, AND, NOR, etc)
MacWarehouse Diskette calculator (solar that looks like a 3.5 diskette and has an M button as well)
and a Pickett Model 4-T Dual Base Log-Log slide rule (Recently, I taught my granddaughter who was studying logarithms in high school how to look them up on this slide rule and how multiplication actually works because she needed some help.)
Over the years, I misplaced/lost my 6 inch Pickett and a Casio combination scientific calculator/digital wrist watch. I used the latter at work in a computer lab because it was always at "hand".
PS-Nowadays, I use Excel or Appleworks because they remember, display, and print.
sam
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Northwest Ohio
Status:
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Originally Posted by brassplayersrock²
Originally Posted by Person Man
The M button functioned much like the "M+" button in OS X's standard calculator app. Most calculators with an M button also had MR and MC (read and clear). M for memory.
But that Datacal that Rob posted actually has an "N" button, not an "M" button. I'd love to know what that one was for.
Nagger
Fixed.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Automatic
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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What I would really love is a Curta.
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Northwest Ohio
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Originally Posted by awaspaas
What I would really love is a Curta.
They appear to be going for about $1000-$2000 on eBay, depending on the condition. My best friend's father has one that he bought in 1960 that he uses all the time. I played with it a couple times. Interesting device.
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Baninated
Join Date: Jun 2009
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Originally Posted by angelmb
I posted that in the first post.
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Addicted to MacNN
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Automatic
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Thanks for pointing that up. I need more sleep hours.
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Games Meister
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Eternity
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Originally Posted by awaspaas
What I would really love is a Curta.
Is this compatible with Nikon cameras?
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Registered User
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: Garden of Paradise Motel, Suite 3D
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Originally Posted by ghporter
The very first calculator in my whole school district was purchased by our high school math department head; an HP 55, costing him almost $400. It was programmable, and could do so many different things...
I still have and use my HP-15C. Hard to beat RPN.
I went through TWO of my 17B back in the old days, most folks were using the 12C. HP just produced a mid-tier financial calculator based on the revised 30 series, and I can't wait to work on one. I've got a 13 around here someplace that still works, too.
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