What an electronic calculator!

Foxbat said:
I remember using a slide rule in the 70s.
Again, for the young 'uns;)
Slide rule - Wikipedia
Click to expand...

Jeez, you wonder why that tech died out ;):D

(By the time I got to primary school in the mid-70's we were all decimal, SI and there wasn't a slide rule in sight! I think I got my first proper calculator, a white Casio fx-82, aged ten. Mind you, they are mostly obsolete now too....)
 
The best thing about using the slide rule was that it taught** one to estimate the magnitude of the answer (which can be handy when one has punched/typed a decimal point in the wrong place in a number into the calculator/spreadsheet).


** - I was taught this in the first year of secondary school back in 1968/69. It's so long ago, it's no wonder I'm always up the creak... though not necessarily without a piddle.... :eek: (Yes, I mistype words as well as numbers. :rolleyes:)
 
Very interesting. In 1975 I bought my first electronic calculator $30.00. It came in a nice leather case and I thought I had the world by the tail as I was figuring out percentages for my high school students. Now.... they hand out calculators (sans leather case) as free promo items.
 
My first calculator (which may, or may not, be in the loft):

upload_2017-11-30_18-6-7.jpeg

It came with a booklet that explained how one could use it to perform other functions. (I vaguely recall that one of these was to calculate the cube root of a number.)

Original image from Wikipedia; created by Bubba73.
 
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Yes, we were taught to use slide rules and log tables at school. I think I was the final year that had to buy a slide rule in junior school before we all were using calculators. Calculators were expensive though and not everyone could afford them, so log tables continued for a little while longer.

I just wanted to draw attention to the work of the General Post Office Engineers at Bletchley Park, including Thomas "Tommy" Harold Flowers, who designed and built Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic digital computer in 1943-45 using only valve technology. They are often forgotten, partly because they are now frequently overshadowed by the work there of the cryptanalysts, and notably of Alan Turing; and partly because their work was still kept as an official secret until 1974, allowing the American ENIAC machine to steal their thunder.
 
Dave said:
Yes, we were taught to use slide rules and log tables at school. I think I was the final year that had to buy a slide rule in junior school before we all were using calculators. Calculators were expensive though and not everyone could afford them, so log tables continued for a little while longer.
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Yep. Same here. I think my first actual calculator (which I bought just in time for college) was a Texas with the red led display. The first thing I learned was if you turned it upside down, you could make it spell words like 'BOOBS' :D So much for the advancement of Mankind...:rolleyes:
 
Another Slide rule & log book pupil from back in the late 70s.

I could never understand slide rules, and the only purpose I could see was to scratch my back or poke the person sitting in front of me (Mandy Harrison I think her name was); slide rules also made good catapults in class too!

My first calculator was a Sinclair. Great little machine that we could use in class but not during our "O" Level exams :confused:

220px-Sinclair_Scientific.jpg
 
The first calculator I had used 4 x AA batteries, with a few hours life, and sported a hard-wired VAT button (which couldn't be re-programmed).
 
It’s a Sumlock Anita. I saw my first one at The Business Efficiency Exhibiton in Manchester in 1963.

It was star of the art stuff in those days.
 
I learnt on slide rule and log tables. No calculators were permitted until I got to university and then they weren't permitted in exams if they had any memory in them.
 
Anyone remember delay-loops?

A delay-loop was a wire loop that served as a low-capacity memory for calculators and other electronic equipment. Binary digits were sent as a signal down the loop in a continuous read-write operation. The length of the loop determining the size of the memory.
 
mosaix said:
Anyone remember delay-loops?

A delay-loop was a wire loop that served as a low-capacity memory for calculators and other electronic equipment. Binary digits were sent as a signal down the loop in a continuous read-write operation. The length of the loop determining the size of the memory.
Click to expand...

They discuss it in the video - the calculator has a loop of piano wire that is hit and then a microphone picks up the bit that has been sent a bit later.
 
:D

He opens up the memory unit at around 2 mins 10 secs and shows the inner secrets.
 
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