Can a Calculator be Vintage?

[Jakemedic]

I can remember being a little boy and my parents having a discussion if they should buy their first calculator. I think they talked about it cause it was so expensive and mom didn’t work outside the home. When they bought it, I couldn’t touch it unless I asked. I could not use it for my homework until AFTER I got it done and done correctly. I had to show my “figuring paper” too. That way they knew I had actually done the work.

Fast forward to maybe 2010, I bought a building calculator that actually does fractions (among other things). My calculator on my phone can’t do that, unless I spend money to purchase an app. I would be lost in my shop without it.

 

[cherokee]

In the 90's, I ran one of the food stands for a local flea market, and they ALWAYS had problems with cash drawers being wrong, sometimes in the dozens of dollars. I startd teaching my employees to count out, then count back change like we did when I was a kid, not relying on the readout on the till, and sure as shooting our drawers were within 10 cents of perfect (and most of the time dead on) every closing. If you couldn't do it, then you needed to learn or move on, sorry.

This was a few years ago, when paying for something I saw the register would show them pictures of what they are to give back with a number next to them on how many.

There was an "older" lady there training. I asked her if it was that bad. What? I pointed to the register, these kids can't count?

She said, it is not that bad......it is worse.

 

[Lassen Forge]

If you want your mind blown look up curta.

I had a Curta back in the 1960s. Very useful, actually.

OK... when I was a brat of a kid, my mom had one of these mechanical slider calculators she kept in her purse, used the tip of a ballpoint pen to select the number and slide it (down to add, up to subtract)... Of course, np batteries required. But not very useful sometimes... like Multiplication or Division.

Anyway, you know, I was doing JUST FINE with my current TI-84 plus C... Sure, I have to charge it every so often... which is a pain... and it does things that would take a room of processing in the 60's...

THEN, you bastages, you show me something that not only does NOT take batteries, but does numerous functions. All in the palm of my hand. That dates back to the last century. I remember my uncle had something like this on his desk (that I was told not to touch).

I'll have to remember to scream some more after I've gone down yet another rabbit hole, and probably spent too much money. Grrrr....

 

[tool_scrounge]

The HP 97 calculator with printer and card reader may qualify. It even has the original case. I should probably sell one of them. Oddly, I do not have a HP 11C and would like to buy one of those.

 

[cherokee]

IIRC the issue with the early HP and TI are the buttons, they would wear out and one press would give you a line of 2's.

You could send them back to be fixed....man i so think so.

 

[luvtheheat]

My dad's old engineering stamp, slide rule and calculator

I had a TI BA-II calculator in college early 80s. Still works fine!

 

[Garcky]

OK... when I was a brat of a kid, my mom had one of these mechanical slider calculators she kept in her purse, used the tip of a ballpoint pen to select the number and slide it (down to add, up to subtract)... Of course, np batteries required. But not very useful sometimes... like Multiplication or Division.

Anyway, you know, I was doing JUST FINE with my current TI-84 plus C... Sure, I have to charge it every so often... which is a pain... and it does things that would take a room of processing in the 60's...

THEN, you bastages, you show me something that not only does NOT take batteries, but does numerous functions. All in the palm of my hand. That dates back to the last century. I remember my uncle had something like this on his desk (that I was told not to touch).

I'll have to remember to scream some more after I've gone down yet another rabbit hole, and probably spent too much money. Grrrr....

Save your money. Really. I bought one when I was playing around with road rallies in the late '60s. All of the guys had their Curtas, and it seemed like you had to have one to compete successfully. So, I bought one from some other club member for $50 when he bought the latest and greatest one. You'd use them to calculate how fast you should drive, for how long, to make up time in one of the timed segments after having to stop or slow down for some reason. I understood the concept, and learned how to do it on a Curta, but I was the driver, and my navigator, who doubled as my girlfriend at the time, did not understand the math. So, the Curta sat on the dash of my 1959 Volvo PV544 while I did rough calculations in my head.

I actually won a couple of rallies put on by the Ventura County Sports Car club at the time. Pissed off some of the others who were competing, for some reason. Some guys took that stuff seriously. Anyhow, I looked up Curta on eBay a couple of years ago, and was shocked at what they were bringing. So, I got mine out of the drawer where it was pining for the woods. Paid half of my property tax bill with the proceeds of the sale.

Cute antique technology, but not all that useful, in the end.

 

[AffableCurmudgeon]

I keep meaning to fiddle with that slide rule but have not got around to it

I just use the slide rule app on my iPhone.

 

[PSCo1867]

This Burroughs beast is lurking in the basement of our main office:

 

[brute84]

Ok, calculator talk. I remember when i was getting my engineering degree in the early 80s, there were two kinds of engineering students. The poors who had Ti 30s and the rich students who had HP 41CVs. Unfortunately, I fell into the former grouping, which was not unlike grade school where I fell into the 8/16 crayon box grouping instead of the 64 crayon box with a built-in sharpener grouping. I still use my HP 28B business calculator that I used in grad school. Here are a couple cheap vintage calcs I own. The Commmodore was a game changer, it included a percentage key!

 

[MShaw]

Here's my vintage "calculators". The plain 10" is from about 1957 and the 10" log log is from about 1961. Both are plastic and made by Charvoz.

 

[AreBeeBee]

Here's my vintage "calculators". The plain 10" is from about 1957 and the 10" log log is from about 1961. Both are plastic and made by Charvoz.

They look very nicely made. Charvoz (and Charvoz-Roos) had a complex corporate history not unlike many tool manufacturers, especially the early 20th century ones.

https://sliderulemuseum.com/CharvozRoos.htm

 

[bitbuster]

Wine and much

Technically, the only thing that can be vintage is wine. Even then it is just, literally the age of the wine. One year old wine is vintage.

Wine and older period clothing.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Garky said
"I actually won a couple of rallies put on by the Ventura County Sports Car club at the time. Pissed off some of the others who were competing, for some reason. Some guys took that stuff seriously"

I had a similar experience when I won the Friday night drags one week. Those guys were pissed off!

 

[Walkers]

Wine and much


Wine and older period clothing.

The word translates directly from latin to 'wine age'

 

[RivennHewn]

The word translates directly from latin to 'wine age'

Words grow/evolve. Original meanings change, and they get adapted to new situations.

“Aficionado “ isn’t just about cigars anymore.

And “Czars” just aren’t the same as they used to be.

Put that in your 10-key!

 

[CoogarXR]

I remember having the Armitron calculator watch that had the shooter game on it. It also had a piano function. Totally 80s rad! Here's a pic of the one I'm talking about. Not mine, just a pic from google:

 

[Walkers]

“Aficionado “ isn’t just about cigars anymore.

It never was about cigars, it was about amateur matadors in Spain...

I know word usage changes over time. Understanding their origins is interesting and educational though. It also helps to use them more more correctly. Instead of saying 'this calculator is vintage' you might say' this calculator is vintage 1962', because vintage doesn't really mean old it means dated.

 

[sh944]

I had a HP-41C in engineering school back in the early 80’s. I’ve only used RPN ever since and to this day, I still have to stop and think if I am trying to use a “normal” calculator. I have HP12Cs on my desk at home and at the office these days.

 

[humber2]

Here is a tiny bamboo slide rule and case, a Hemmi, produced for Toshiba.

There is a 10cm ruler along the top edge.

 

[MShaw]

Thanks for the Charvoz link. Very interesting.

 

[Davefr]

Wifey and I went to a garage/estate sale. I walked in and walked right out because it looked to be all women's stuff. I told wifey I'd wait in the car. She came out and said you better come back and look upstairs. I did and found a box of HP calculators. Apparently the deceased was a design engineer at HP's calculator division. The HP 65 is a working prototype with the magnetic card reader. I later found out that they used a clear see thru plastic case to analyze component placement. (prior to modern CAD software)

 

[qdvuu]

HP-45s are considered vintage and there are some rabid collectors out there. Nowadays I use an HP-45 app on my phone and it works great!

 

[Davefr]

HP-45s are considered vintage and there are some rabid collectors out there. Nowadays I use an HP-45 app on my phone and it works great!

HP-45 was my first calculator. In college you were at a competitive disadvantage without one during timed problem solving exams. (not really fair IMHO) Dear old Dad bought me one without hesitation since he wanted me to have the best chances possible. $400 was a ton of money back then. Thank you dad!

 

[Boilerhouse]

My mid 1970's HP 21 was the best calculator I have used. With RPN and 4 stacks, it was very intuitive to use, and although considered somewhat basic, it had every function I wanted. It needs a new battery, so I should visit You Tube where some videos will walk through the process. Currently using the modern HP 35, but still long to be back with the ol' 21.

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Snagged this K&E model no. N4053-5 today at the flea. I'm not well enough versed in these to stand there and ID it in real time, but it bore enough similarities to the ca. 1941 model 4081-3 I posted upthread (post #29) for me to surmise it was the same age. As it turns out, it has only a slightly higher S/N than one housed at the American Museum of History, which they date to 1930, so it's from a little later, probably early to mid 1930's. Polyphase Mannheim Simplex. Sounds like an alternative rock band.

 

[bonneyman]

Nice!

 

[Oldtuleguy]

A few more from my dad's stash

 

[AreBeeBee]

Snagged this K&E model no. N4053-5 today at the flea. I'm not well enough versed in these to stand there and ID it in real time, but it bore enough similarities to the ca. 1941 model 4081-3 I posted upthread (post #29) for me to surmise it was the same age. As it turns out, it has only a slightly higher S/N than one housed at the American Museum of History, which they date to 1930, so it's from a little later, probably early to mid 1930's. Polyphase Mannheim Simplex. Sounds like an alternative rock band.

Lugz, the cursor rails on your flea market 4053 were made of celluloid and have deteriorated with age (see third photo), which is why one or both are broken. This is well known in the SR collector community as "K&E Rotting Cursor Syndrome," or KERCS for short.

This site (https://www.allaboutastro.com/all-about-ke-rules.html) has a lot on K&E rules, including a sidebar at the top on KERCS. Long story short, there's no cure besides replacing the rails with newly made ones of delrin or some other modern plastic. (The indicator glass and its metal frame is probably OK.)

See also:

https://www.sliderule.ca/cursors.htm
https://www.instructables.com/Refurbish-an-Old-Slide-Rule
http://davidcrate.com/index.html#Anchor-"KERCS" Bre-52772

Another solution is to keep looking and if you find a more recently made 4053 slide rule with an intact cursor, buy that and make a swap.

Finally, lots here on K & E rules:
https://www.sliderulemuseum.com/KE_Standard.htm

 

[Private Lugnutz]

Yup. And they're totally gone on the 4081-3 (post #29).

 

[AreBeeBee]

Yup. And they're totally gone on the 4081-3 (post #29).

So sad. And that's an exccellent log-log slide rule, too. Perfectly usable today and far into the future — but needing a cursor with intact rails.

 

[theoldwizard1]

My uncle worked for HP back in the early 70's and had something to do with the development of the HP35...

Students with $$$ (mine went into beer) bought the 35/45. I waited a year and bought a TI SR-10. It had a 1/X function. Priceless !

My HP 25 got me through college ! Although, there was a bug in the firmware when converting from rectangular to polar coordinate

 

[johninct]

My HP 41CX is either 1984 or 1985. It is my go to calculator that I regularly use all of the time.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

I have been asking some of my older customers if they have any interesting old calculators, and one of them brought this in. Not a calculator but pretty cool.

 

[Wrench97]

I have been asking some of my older customers if they have any interesting old calculators, and one of them brought this in. Not a calculator but pretty cool.

I had one of those years ago, as I remember there is no fuse on the amp side so if you get over 10 amps across it the smoke genie comes out and flies away...................................

 

[humber2]

I had one of those years ago, as I remember there is no fuse on the amp side so if you get over 10 amps across it the smoke genie comes out and flies away...................................

That looks to be a handy appliance tester, but not an online fault finder.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

It's a pretty basic meter

 

[bonneyman]

Here's some of my slide rules.

 

[MarkH]

Even Sears was in on it. They had I believe the Rockwell sold as the Sears Electronic Slide Rule. Dad saw one at the store and got these I believe in 1974. This one still works. If the picture had been better you would see the blue number zero on it.

It replaced the real slide rule I had. I had a couple of professors in Engineering who gave me some slack when I still used the slide rule on tests 15 years later. It was vudoo to the rest of the younger students.

 

[Mr.zippy]

My father was a civil engineer. He purchased this around 1975. It was very expensive, but he said it was revolutionary for his work. I still use it occasionally. Brings back great memories of my dad!