Calculators
I was reminded of calculators this week (see this previous blog:
https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/7th-posting-charm.html
I remember sitting next to a guy on a plane once while traveling to the IEEE Cherry Hill (NJ) Test Conference. It turned out that he worked at HP in Corvalis OR, the calculator part. I remember telling him about my HP-25 and how it was "nice" - he said that a lot of people applied the word: nice to the HP products :)
Before getting the HP I went through the usual suspects like a 4 function TI calculator and later a TI SR-10 (SR stood for square root ? - no: slide rule). I also had an aluminum Pickett slide rule but rarely used it. It was a Dutch-auction time in the 1970s for calculators, if you were willing to wait the prices were sure to come down OR the new models would have more features for the same money.
One calculator I didn't purchase was this Rockwell model from Sears (58770):
source: https://www.si.edu/object/sears-80158770-handheld-electronic-calculator-sears-5877:nmah_1364056
A classmate in college was considering one but rejected it. For one thing the functions like sin and cos were SLOW, the green display would wink out while it was thinking ? It seemed like seconds but was probably faster. But the real problem was that the values for the functions were sometimes WRONG. I don't think anyone really needed 8 places of accuracy but the Sears / Rockwell didn't match the CRC tables ! Anyway, slow AND inaccurate weren't good sales points so he returned it. I remember another thing, at the Sears store the calculators were displayed horizontally under a clear plastic sheet. There was a finger sized hole where you could touch the buttons and try the calculator but apparently the calculators were too expensive to take the chance that someone would steal one !
Semi-obligatory inflated price:
I was earning $2 an hour in the summer at that time so a Sears Rockwell calculator would have been over a weeks wages. I think the $150 I spent on the ARRL life membership was a wiser use of my money :)
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm
https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/7th-posting-charm.html
I remember sitting next to a guy on a plane once while traveling to the IEEE Cherry Hill (NJ) Test Conference. It turned out that he worked at HP in Corvalis OR, the calculator part. I remember telling him about my HP-25 and how it was "nice" - he said that a lot of people applied the word: nice to the HP products :)
Before getting the HP I went through the usual suspects like a 4 function TI calculator and later a TI SR-10 (SR stood for square root ? - no: slide rule). I also had an aluminum Pickett slide rule but rarely used it. It was a Dutch-auction time in the 1970s for calculators, if you were willing to wait the prices were sure to come down OR the new models would have more features for the same money.
One calculator I didn't purchase was this Rockwell model from Sears (58770):
source: https://www.si.edu/object/sears-80158770-handheld-electronic-calculator-sears-5877:nmah_1364056
A classmate in college was considering one but rejected it. For one thing the functions like sin and cos were SLOW, the green display would wink out while it was thinking ? It seemed like seconds but was probably faster. But the real problem was that the values for the functions were sometimes WRONG. I don't think anyone really needed 8 places of accuracy but the Sears / Rockwell didn't match the CRC tables ! Anyway, slow AND inaccurate weren't good sales points so he returned it. I remember another thing, at the Sears store the calculators were displayed horizontally under a clear plastic sheet. There was a finger sized hole where you could touch the buttons and try the calculator but apparently the calculators were too expensive to take the chance that someone would steal one !
Semi-obligatory inflated price:
I was earning $2 an hour in the summer at that time so a Sears Rockwell calculator would have been over a weeks wages. I think the $150 I spent on the ARRL life membership was a wiser use of my money :)
Best Regards,
Chuck, WB9KZY
http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm
