Calculator

[Mick F]

Look what we found in the back a drawer yesterday. Still seems to work perfectly.
I'd forgotten all about it and probably not used it for 20years or more.
http://mycalcdb.free.fr/main.php?l=0&id=5192

I see they're on eBay!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/c/748103630

Seems to work fine, but TBH, I can't remember my maths to even use half (or less) of what the functions mean anymore - and care even less.
................... but it was an interesting find nevertheless.

[tatanab]

I have a fancy hex calculator that I got in 1985. I needed to work in hexadecimal and octal and well as decimal, plus of course the usual functions.

I also still have my slide rule which I've had since 1968. No good to modern youth because you cannot add up on it.

[merseymouth]

Hi Guys, I had one of the first Sinclair Oxford 100 calculators, cost just under £13. I would buy a nice Lambretta scooter for less than £30, so the toy wasn't cheap.
I had it in my pocket at work, walked into a counter top, result one cracked piece of tech . I did the same thing to an earlier mechanical cash calculator, I never learn . TTFN MM

[al_yrpal]

This one has been going since the 70s or 80s I think... Still in use frequently.

I still have my slide rule and drawing instruments. Cant bear to part with them.

Al

[merseymouth]

Hi Al, Wot, No Naismiths Bones?
Another thing newbys have no idea about is a "Ready Reckoner"! Mine included farthings? Easy these days with only 100 pence in the Pound. MM

[al_yrpal]

Hi Al, Wot, No Naismiths Bones?
. MM

Eh! I Googled that and drew a blank. It must be pre historic? But then, you often come across somewhat like that?

Please fill me in...?

Al?

[rjb]

Here's mine from the back of the drawer.
From a couple of years before those new fangled electronic ones arrived.
British Thornton. Made in England. Are they still around?

[merseymouth]

Hi Al, ! Senior moment, should have typed "Napier's Bones".
My maths skills were better in the summer months, cos I wore sandals . Re-Google for images. IGICB MM

[mercalia]

Hi Guys, I had one of the first Sinclair Oxford 100 calculators, cost just under £13. I would buy a nice Lambretta scooter for less than £30, so the toy wasn't cheap.
I had it in my pocket at work, walked into a counter top, result one cracked piece of tech . I did the same thing to an earlier mechanical cash calculator, I never learn . TTFN MM

is this Clive Sinclair? I bought one of their calculators when a teenager. Probem was it gave wrong answers to the trig functions I think it was. My dad on his travels popped into their HQ at where ever and demanded a refund. He got it! He got it pretty sharp he told me. But only my dad said because at the time Sinclair was showing around some magnates from the Middle East They got rid of my dad pretty quick money in hand

Does any one remember those match box size radios he sold also?

[merseymouth]

Yep, that's the man! Lucky you didn't have to cope with his ZX81's or C5 . IGICB MM

[Oldjohnw]

I started work with what is now HMRC in 1969. We had no electronic calculators. I used log tables for complex calculations and got a regional reputation as the go-to person for such, even with local accountants, having done A level maths at school. I was later seconded for a couple of years to a national firm of accountants, later Deloittes, where there was one calculator in an office of about 150 staff which could only do the four basic mathematical functions. If we wanted to use it we had to book it out because it was kept under lock and key. It cost a fortune even then.

[Mike Sales]

Yep, that's the man! Lucky you didn't have to cope with his ZX81's or C5 . IGICB MM

I built, successfully, one of his Micromatic radios.
Two transistors, two diodes.

https://www.petervis.com/Radios/sinclair-micromatic-pocket-radio/sinclair-micromatic-pocket-radio.html

[tatanab]

My first calculator was a Sinclair Scientific, once the price came low enough. Worked in reverse Polish notation, which was "fun". There was a resistor which could be changed to make it run faster; it took a few seconds to calculate a sine for example. I could only use it at work or home because calculators were frowned on in college. One lecturer would mark you down if you gave an answer to 8 decimal places (sign of using a calculator) when the question values were to one decimal place.

[mercalia]

Yep, that's the man! Lucky you didn't have to cope with his ZX81's or C5 . IGICB MM

I built, successfully, one of his Micromatic radios.
Two transistors, two diodes.

https://www.petervis.com/Radios/sinclair-micromatic-pocket-radio/sinclair-micromatic-pocket-radio.html

That it. So you had to build it? Must have been my dad then

Looking back, that was a nasty bit of cheapo kit? Best Of British NOT

[mercalia]

My first calculator was a Sinclair Scientific, once the price came low enough. Worked in reverse Polish notation, which was "fun". There was a resistor which could be changed to make it run faster; it took a few seconds to calculate a sine for example. I could only use it at work or home because calculators were frowned on in college. One lecturer would mark you down if you gave an answer to 8 decimal places (sign of using a calculator) when the question values were to one decimal place.
SinclairScientific_1.jpg

That may have been the one that gave faulty trig answers then, or maybe it was later one. You clearly never noticed maybe