Hint on cheap calculators

[230RN]

I keep a couple of cheap 4-banger (+,-,*,÷) calculators around and I recently found one of them gave funny results and had bad display segments.

You know, $4,xxx,xxx.28 in the checking account instead of the approximately $8,xxx,xxx.28 I was expecting.

This one had a tip-uppable display, so no wonder some data lines went soft.

I decided that forevermore when I pick up a calculator, I was going to load the display with eights to verify all the segments were working.

Another time a friend of mine brought back a bunch of solar calculators from Thailand, where his wife was born, and gave them out to everybody as little gifts.

Worked fine until the battery got low, so I stuck it under a lamp to recharge it.  No amount of recharging worked, so I figured it was door-nail dead, and took it apart, thinking I'd rescue the photocell for various silly experiments.  You know, just for grins. Hook it up to a meter and see what kind of voltage it developed. Grins.  Come on, you know what I mean.

But I found the photocell had no wires going to it and further inspection revealed that this "photocell" was merely a piece of cardboard printed up to look like a photocell with 4 segments.

I hope he didn't pay too much as import duty on them.

Terry, 230RN

[BlueStarLizzard]

... I just use my phone app, or the tablet app or the computer.

[HankB]

You know, $4,xxx,xxx.28 in the checking account instead of the approximately $8,xxx,xxx.28 I was expecting.

I'd be a little upset with the gizmo if my calculator indicated four million dollars was missing from my checking account.

[Regolith]

The only stand alone calculator I use anymore is my Ti-83+.

No, I don't use any of the higher functions; haven't touched them since college.

Yes, a simple cheap calculator would work just as well.

But the thing cost ~$90 back in the early 2000s, and I've got it laying around, so I might as well use it.

[zahc]

My dad bought one of those hand-crank emergency flashlights at a gun show, where the hand-crank was just for show. You had to crank it to make it work, but there was no dynamo or anything; it just had D batteries inside, and once they ran out it quit working. No way to replace them either.

There's nothing that the Chinese won't fake.

Reminds me of this:

https://www.sparkfun.com/news/364

[Brad Johnson]

I have some kind of fixation on calculators. No idea why but I'm forever buying one because it's neat or different. Offhand I can think of no fewer than twelve floating around the house right now. Prob more if I were to dig into the storage boxes. My go-to desktop is a simple Casio dual power. I keep a Calculated Industries business calculator in my briefcase for work and school. I also keep one of my real estate calculators handy because it can spin up payment/amortization schedules with minimum fuss.

Biggest prob I've had with cheap/giveaway calculators is physically killing them, usually because they were a pocket or portable model I stuck in the shop as an expendible and they got... expended.

Brad

[bedlamite]

I use RealCalc on my phone in RPN mode.

[230RN]

Yeah, I'm a bit of a junkie, too.  One of these days I'm going to pick up one of those abacus ones just for grins.



My full scientific one is a Casio fx-260 solar, but sitting in a drawer are several Sharp EL-series full programmables, etc., and a bunch of other ones.  But I usually use the Microsoft scientific one on the laptop, one advantage being that I can copy the display to whatever text I want, and copy text to the display for entry.

Cube root of pi in the full display ?

1.4645918875615232630201425272638

Which I usually round to only 15 decimal places:

1.464591887561523    

Terry

REF (And pic credit):
https://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/history.html

[MechAg94]

I use RealCalc on my phone in RPN mode.

I have been using an app called “a41CV”.  Does a pretty good imitation of an old HP RPN calculator.  The HP calculators I had mostly started sucking batteries down so fast it wasn’t worth it. I have an HP for work that is still going.

I will have to look up RealCalc.

I still keep a check book.  Doing the balance is the main thing I use the app for at home.  I think I have a couple cheap calculators, but I don’t use them.

[230RN]

^ "I think I have a couple cheap calculators, but I don’t use them."

Well, if  you do, make sure you fill the display with 8s before you trust them.

Two non-working segments of an eight makes it into a four, as mentioned in the OP, hence the $4 billion error in my checkbook.

Terry

[HeroHog]

I TechCalc+ on my LG Android. Good app with more features than I will EVER need!
On my iPad Pro I use Calc Pro

[230RN]

Batteries ran down on this so I retired it.





Pic credit in properties

[dogmush]

Batteries ran down on this so I retired it.





Pic credit in properties

I have an app on my phone that replicates that.  I love seeing the looks on folk's faces when I use it.

[MechAg94]

What is the app called?  I wouldn't mind looking it up.

[lee n. field]

Batteries ran down on this so I retired it.





Pic credit in properties

Still got an old Pickett slide rule.  And a Post made of bamboo.   I remember you could still get them in the college bookstore in 1973, but by fall of '74 they were completely gone.

[K Frame]

I can't even remember the last time I used a dedicated calculator. I'm sure that I still have a couple lying around my house somewhere, but I have no clue where.

[AJ Dual]

There was this weird thing in my grandfather's possessions when he passed. It had a crank like a pepper mill, and little number sliders on the sides. Amazing how much trouble people went through before electronics.

My daughters loved playing with it. Might still be in their toys and junk for all I know.

[K Frame]

"There was this weird thing in my grandfather's possessions when he passed. It had a crank like a pepper mill, and little number sliders on the sides. Amazing how much trouble people went through before electronics."

That was most like a Curta mechanical calculator.

They were QUITE advanced, and have something of a cult following now. They also tend to bring quite high prices -- asking prices on various internet sites are well north of $1K depending on the model.

I have my Father's Curta. Not sure where my Grandfather's Curta got to.


Neat rundown on how they came to be... the originator was a "guest" of the Nazis during WW II.

https://newatlas.com/curta-death-camp-calculator/45506/

[MechAg94]

I had to look.  Yes, they do have a bunch of abacus apps in the play store.  I might have to find one just so I can provoke a reaction at work.     Maybe I need to look on Amazon also.

[K Frame]

I gotta download an abacus app just for fun...

[dogmush]

What is the app called?  I wouldn't mind looking it up.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timscott.sliderule

[230RN]

Still got an old Pickett slide rule.  And a Post made of bamboo.   I remember you could still get them in the college bookstore in 1973, but by fall of '74 they were completely gone.

What's a Post made of bamboo?  Not familiar with that term.

I bought a cheap abacus in Chinatown NY a long time ago.  I stapled a thin lamp cord to the back of it and hung it on my cubicle wall for a while.  Surprisingly, it did not evoke much comment.  Don't know where it is now.

[lee n. field]

What's a Post made of bamboo?  Not familiar with that term.

I bought a cheap abacus in Chinatown NY a long time ago.  I stapled a thin lamp cord to the back of it and hung it on my cubicle wall for a while.  Surprisingly, it did not evoke much comment.  Don't know where it is now.

Post was a manufacturer of slide rules.

Mine looks like this pic from etsy:

 

[230RN]

OK, thanks.  Just not familiar with that brand.

Our High School bookstore sold small 6 inch "emergency" slide rules made of folded-over plastic for about a dollar.  Most of us carried our regular cased ones on our belts, but occasionally forgot them.  They weren't very accurate, but OK for school work where knowing the principles was more important than precision.

I've always wanted one of those giant classroom slide rules to hang on the wall of my shop.  No room for one anymore, though.

[TommyGunn]

When I was in high school in the early 1970s a chemistry teacher distributed circular slide rules for a few bucks apiece in Blu plastic slip covers saying '' chemistry is chool" on the cover.  I may still have it .... as well as a nice aluminum slide rule in a leather slip cover my father gave me .... somewhere ...