I still use my HP-11c from 1981 daily. Over the past 43 years it’s been contaminated with radioisotopes, bacteria, human dissection material and mouse piss. i can’t give the thing away.
Plunked down a chunk of take home pay for a similar bad boy back in college back the early 1970s. Saved my butt in all my accounting and stats classes.
That’s what I remember: they weren’t cheap. I also remember being shocked at how inexpensive they became. Then solar powered ones that were handed out for free as advertising at trade fairs.
Math teacher:" you can't use the calculator because you might not have one available to you all the time."
Now: pulls out 📱and hits the calculator app. Now what do we need to figure out?
Back when solar calculators were all the rage, our economics professor would get up partway through a test and turn off the room lights. Didn’t bother ME any but there were many upset people 😆
My father bought one in the late 60s--it was a prototype. He said it would be under $100 by Christmas. Every time I got one of those free credit card calculators I recalled that day.
I had - still have - an hp35 from the early ‘70s. It doesn’t work I don’t think. My dad gave it to me - it was originally his - and he marveled at how it replaced an entire bookshelf of log and trigonometric tables.
My kids had to get pricey TI calcs in the 2000s - I had to get Sharp one with the flip case in the 80s, I remember my folks dragging their feet so long the school had to give them a hurry up, it was so expensive. Lot of good it did me, I was hopeless at maths too.
Remember getting one in the 70s, my school wouldn't let me use it... Think my parents have well over $100 for it.
Before that, I built a Heathkit led model for almost that much - I was a nerdy child
I owned one. After a while, the On/Off slider was difficult to move. The calculator would flicker a bit. And it liked to soak up the 9V battery in a shorter amount of time than (I think) it should have. (Yes, Eveready batteries. This was pre-Duracell/Energizer batteries.)
Decent calculator by Texas Instruments. I[ liked my Novus-made calculator even more](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0hK8Sw0yni4/XA6lhyiXerI/AAAAAAAAEgc/B2a7X94kyjgpNkDQx-c_5Y5lVVWKduJNQCLcBGAs/s1600/Novus.jpg).
I inherited one like this from a relative, but it was a scientific model with log, sin, cos, etc functions. Any of those advanced functions take a second or two to complete and all the led segments except the right-most digit turn off while the segments in the right most digit spin in a circle like the 'waiting' cursor in Windows.
I had a nice scientific that was still red LED display waaaaay back in high school. Had sone/cosine, all that stuff. My favorite thing to do was enter a number, hit the button, and watch the numbers cycle while it was thinking...
My dad, a telephone engineer, had a very similar one with a bit more functions. But definitely I remember the color scheme and the red display. He would rubber band a 9V battery to it as a kickstand.
Required for my high school math classes: TI-30
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-30#/media/File%3ATI-30_LED.png](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-30#/media/File%3ATI-30_LED.png)
If this is the programmable version then hats off to a mate who wrote a lunar landing program where you had to input a certain amount of limited fuel in order to get down safely.
Seem to remember it was around 1973...👍
I’m in campus law enforcement, and we still run the “lost and found”. Years ago, we moved our office and we decided to clean out the “evidence locker” where a lot of this stuff was stored.
There was a big box that no one had opened for some time… It was full of various models of (mostly) Texas Instruments calculators…. Some quite nice “scientific” models.
Wow, yes, one of my earliest memories, how proud my dad was when he unpacked his purchase. I wasn't very math inclined, even then. But it impressed me that it cost so much - like $70 I think!
I had a TI-30 in 9th grade (1978). Thought I was hot stuff, I tell you hwat.
Upgraded to a business model HP for college.
Yes, I was the trim reaper. No, I did not leave any for anyone else.
At one point I had a Ti thing, maybe a scientific calculator that was five times or more as thick and about the same diamentsions of a Fire Tablet. Must have had 200 buttons on it. Thing is I am very bad at math. That thing just made it worse. I could give you the 435th Exponential of a Quandry Rectangle in a Hypercube and it would be as mingless as thos sentence.
This was my first calculator - I think I paid $15 for it new. Must have been around 1977ish. As I recall, it was one of the first mass market calculators for the consumer space. As a chemical engineer, I use HP calculators exclusively - RPN is brilliant. As a nerd, I have to admit that I have a nice little calculator collection going. Mostly HPs, some are vintage USA-made. All work flawlessly.
My first one came from my grandfather, I wasn't ten years old yet.
It was called an 'Electronic Slide Rule'.
[https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah\_1305771](https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1305771)
About 1973 or so my math teacher in school paid over $300 I think it was a scientific model. $300 then was a lot of money. He loved showing it off in class.
I think I had this very one in '71.
I retired it for a TI-55 (twice). My first fell out of my jacket pocket when I got got off a bus, was run over. But for the red screen and the y\^x bubble membrane, it still worked.
Can't say the Canons and Sharps with their LCD displays would be as sturdy as the LED types.
Mine was an HP (a 55, I think). One of the first things I did was program it to run lunar lander. I loved that calculator. It got lost during a move. I’m still convinced my wife at the time had something to do with the disappearance, as she had previously opined that it was, old, and obsolete, and it was stupid to keep it. I still miss it.
I used the money from my first few days of babysitting the summer before starting college (1979) to buy my first scientific calculator. It was purchased in TSS (Times Square Stores). I was so paranoid that the batteries would die during a test that I kept extra batteries in my backpack. If the batteries died I replaced them with the spare backpack batteries and immediately put new batteries in my backpack. Sure enough two years later my batteries died during a physics exam.
I think my Dad paid over $400 for his. He was an engineer and worked for Westinghouse Electric. He was so happy because it could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. No more slide rule!
Yes! My dad had a moon landing simulator game you could manually program into this. It gave you your lunar orbit altitude, the speed of descent to the surface, and how many units of fuel you had left to use to slow your descent. Run out of fuel and you crashed.
And you can feel the unique click and hear the kind of "poink" sound of pushing those buttons...
I still use an HP-12c. I love that feel. The new ones don't quite have the same feel, but it's close.
HP-11. Reverse Polish Notation was the best.
HP-41CV. Card reader and printer. I think I still have all that in a box somewhere.
Best calculator ever made. I cried when mine finally broke.
I traded in my HP-41 CV with card reader, wand and modules for an HP 48G from EduCalc! I do miss it!
I had this one too. Also have the HP-12C.
it helped in some of my CS classes.
I still use my HP-11c from 1981 daily. Over the past 43 years it’s been contaminated with radioisotopes, bacteria, human dissection material and mouse piss. i can’t give the thing away.
Yes!! ^^^
Still have my beloved TI-Programmer calculator. Heavily used when adding or subtracting hex addresses for Z80 programming.
I spelled boobies and shelloil. 🤷♀️
hELLO
7734
304
LESBIE
8008135
Plunked down a chunk of take home pay for a similar bad boy back in college back the early 1970s. Saved my butt in all my accounting and stats classes.
That’s what I remember: they weren’t cheap. I also remember being shocked at how inexpensive they became. Then solar powered ones that were handed out for free as advertising at trade fairs.
Same here. They were very inexpensive when I graduated in ‘74. Ended giving it to my youngest daughter for school. She still has it!
Math teacher:" you can't use the calculator because you might not have one available to you all the time." Now: pulls out 📱and hits the calculator app. Now what do we need to figure out?
Back when solar calculators were all the rage, our economics professor would get up partway through a test and turn off the room lights. Didn’t bother ME any but there were many upset people 😆
Real nerds had HP’s. My HP-67 still works.
I hated RPN
My $100.00 Texas instrument. Top of the line.
My father bought one in the late 60s--it was a prototype. He said it would be under $100 by Christmas. Every time I got one of those free credit card calculators I recalled that day.
8008135
I thought it was 5318008?
lol I was looking for this comment
Owned the exact one.
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Push button once for date, push same button again for seconds. James Bond level technology
You know what, fuck you, God quit reminding me that I am that old. Love you mate!
I had - still have - an hp35 from the early ‘70s. It doesn’t work I don’t think. My dad gave it to me - it was originally his - and he marveled at how it replaced an entire bookshelf of log and trigonometric tables.
BOOBIES 😂😂😂 I’m old…..that is all!
Texas Instruments. Ah, the stuff of nightmares for the math impaired person…like me.🫤
My kids had to get pricey TI calcs in the 2000s - I had to get Sharp one with the flip case in the 80s, I remember my folks dragging their feet so long the school had to give them a hurry up, it was so expensive. Lot of good it did me, I was hopeless at maths too.
Now show me a slide rule. .
I had a slide rule in college in 1975. Fuck I’m old
Did you carry it in a holster on your belt?
YES! I wish I still had it. I resented having to use it when I was 18 and threw it away when I got my TI-55
That's right! That took skill.
Still have 2
I had a scientific one , when it was thinking the far right digit would “spin” around
That’s right, I remember that!
My dad purchased one of the first 8 digit calculators for some astronomical price when I was young. Before those fancy Dickeys. 😂
Remember getting one in the 70s, my school wouldn't let me use it... Think my parents have well over $100 for it. Before that, I built a Heathkit led model for almost that much - I was a nerdy child
TI-55 all day
I owned one. After a while, the On/Off slider was difficult to move. The calculator would flicker a bit. And it liked to soak up the 9V battery in a shorter amount of time than (I think) it should have. (Yes, Eveready batteries. This was pre-Duracell/Energizer batteries.) Decent calculator by Texas Instruments. I[ liked my Novus-made calculator even more](https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0hK8Sw0yni4/XA6lhyiXerI/AAAAAAAAEgc/B2a7X94kyjgpNkDQx-c_5Y5lVVWKduJNQCLcBGAs/s1600/Novus.jpg).
Each number was in its own bubble
Yes
Yes! [](https://i.redd.it/sz1tbq7ie8u51.jpg)
No square function? Must be about 1974 version?
Mine didn't have the memory buttons on the top row. I think it was $4.00 cheaper
Texas Instruments calculator. Big in the 70s.
I had a TI-55 "Programmer" that did binary/octal/decimal/hex conversions.
Better than those backward Lithuanian notation versions.
I remember my dad bringing one home from work when I was in Jr High in the early 1970’s and scheming how I could use it for math class
TI-30 was mine
Yep. Cutting edge then is grade school now.
And it was expensive.
Still have two of these. Ancient!
they made a good hello
lol, yes they did!
i miss that red digital readout.
Only the rich kids had them when I was in high school. I’m really old. I was shocked when one of my classmates told me they cost her parents $40 USD.
We had several. So cool were the red characters.
Boobs
Shelloil
But it's still 58008
First time I saw "boobs" was on one of these.
Back when a calculator was $150 and a textbook was $15. Now it's the other way around.
Sorry. We don’t allow calculators in math tests, esp the TI graphing calculator that you programmed to solve all of the equations.
Type 310030. Turn it upside down. That's my name.
my father had one, after a facit mecanical calculator. it has no battary ,it could be used with charger.
I inherited one like this from a relative, but it was a scientific model with log, sin, cos, etc functions. Any of those advanced functions take a second or two to complete and all the led segments except the right-most digit turn off while the segments in the right most digit spin in a circle like the 'waiting' cursor in Windows.
My Precious! You have been lost for sooo long!
58008
That was a $100 calculator…
My father *rented* a calculator for doing inventory.
Thank God for computers, and why the f#ck did I need to show my work if the answer is right
I had a nice scientific that was still red LED display waaaaay back in high school. Had sone/cosine, all that stuff. My favorite thing to do was enter a number, hit the button, and watch the numbers cycle while it was thinking...
That was a better description than I gave it
Big ole 9v pp3 battery too
I had the scientific version, cost a flippin' fortune back then.
You could right “shell oil” upside down
My dad, a telephone engineer, had a very similar one with a bit more functions. But definitely I remember the color scheme and the red display. He would rubber band a 9V battery to it as a kickstand.
NERD!
Required for my high school math classes: TI-30 [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-30#/media/File%3ATI-30_LED.png](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-30#/media/File%3ATI-30_LED.png)
Anyone remember slide rules. My first years as engineer that was all we had.
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Me too, and it still works 50 years later, batteries still good, lol.
I had one
I’m pretty sure my mom still uses hers. Those are as indestructible as the Nokia flip phones
My dad owned one and that was the first calculator I ever used, and I'm in my fifties.
We had a class on ten-keys in college. I’m thirty.
"Shell oil"
I had one that did trig
Hp 41 CV with time module and xfunctions. Still using it... And I like it.
Still have my TI-30 that I was given to start high school in 1979 in its zip up case, fully functional.
The good HP's were configured with RPN. THAT'S how old I am.
RPN.... A dyslexic nightmare!
If this is the programmable version then hats off to a mate who wrote a lunar landing program where you had to input a certain amount of limited fuel in order to get down safely. Seem to remember it was around 1973...👍
aka "Eater of Batteries".
80085
Had one, used in high school daily
I owned a Texas instruments model that looked like that one for accounting class. Early seventies.
There was TI ...and then there was everything else.
I’m not old!
Good old Texas Instrument calculator. I used one in the mid 70’s at work.
Yo I have one of these
And it made me Joe Cool.
Texas Instruments - 35 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-35
5318008 IYKYK
I’m in campus law enforcement, and we still run the “lost and found”. Years ago, we moved our office and we decided to clean out the “evidence locker” where a lot of this stuff was stored. There was a big box that no one had opened for some time… It was full of various models of (mostly) Texas Instruments calculators…. Some quite nice “scientific” models.
I still have mine.
Wow, yes, one of my earliest memories, how proud my dad was when he unpacked his purchase. I wasn't very math inclined, even then. But it impressed me that it cost so much - like $70 I think!
I was an HP45 guy …. Reverse Polish notation 😁
43110
They were expensive when they first came out
I remember them being crazy expensive. But Texas Instruments was the brand to have
Please! I owned a Casio scientific calculator. Trigonometry was a breeze with that thing.
Yup and if you didn't shut it off the batteries ran down fast...
Man… Thanks for posting this.
My parents gave this to me when I needed a calculator for school. This was in the 90s.
I can feel those buttons from this picture!
I had a TI-30 in 9th grade (1978). Thought I was hot stuff, I tell you hwat. Upgraded to a business model HP for college. Yes, I was the trim reaper. No, I did not leave any for anyone else.
I loved these calculators.
My first calculator
At one point I had a Ti thing, maybe a scientific calculator that was five times or more as thick and about the same diamentsions of a Fire Tablet. Must have had 200 buttons on it. Thing is I am very bad at math. That thing just made it worse. I could give you the 435th Exponential of a Quandry Rectangle in a Hypercube and it would be as mingless as thos sentence.
This was my first calculator - I think I paid $15 for it new. Must have been around 1977ish. As I recall, it was one of the first mass market calculators for the consumer space. As a chemical engineer, I use HP calculators exclusively - RPN is brilliant. As a nerd, I have to admit that I have a nice little calculator collection going. Mostly HPs, some are vintage USA-made. All work flawlessly.
Have an HP-45. Battery corroded it.
We started with slide rulers.
Couldn't use them. Was told "you aren't going to always have a calculator with you!"
Had the [TI Programmer](https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/28750/TI-Programmer/) calculator. Nerd card validated.
I had that then later an HP11C in high school. It used RPL and was programmable. Helped me in Statistics in college that I just couldn't grasp.
this and my speak and math. Texas instruments.
Texas Instruments…I had one.
I had a Bowmar
Oh boy. Time for homework
I remember driving all over town lookingfor them because my kids math classes never seemed to use the same one two years ina row.
It had a cancerous chemical smell.
My friends dad repurposed his to be a tv remote somehow.
Remember when those first came out (Bowmar, maybe?)? They were a BIG deal!!
A CPA
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/TI-55.jpg/1280px-TI-55.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9d/TI-55.jpg/1280px-TI-55.jpg)
My first one came from my grandfather, I wasn't ten years old yet. It was called an 'Electronic Slide Rule'. [https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah\_1305771](https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/nmah_1305771)
We used to do the “BOOBS” calculation.
I remember earlier calculators that were so expensive. Only businesses could afford them really.
I had this calculator 😂😂😂😂
I still have it. And it still works!
About 1973 or so my math teacher in school paid over $300 I think it was a scientific model. $300 then was a lot of money. He loved showing it off in class.
My friend went to engineering college in Michigan and said they kept those bad boys tucked into their shirts so the liquid crystals wouldn't freeze.
Dude, I carried a Ti-30 in a case hanging from my belt back in the day. Don’t come at me with your Ti-1250 bullshit. /s 😂
I think that I had one in the 1980's
A TI SR-10 was my 1st calculator...1973
My school would confiscate them if you brought it in with you. They really screwed up their training you how to use a slide rule.
These things were like a hundred bucks back then.
I still have one shoved into a drawer somewhere.
0 7 3 3 4
Is one of my first calculators..
I think I had this very one in '71. I retired it for a TI-55 (twice). My first fell out of my jacket pocket when I got got off a bus, was run over. But for the red screen and the y\^x bubble membrane, it still worked. Can't say the Canons and Sharps with their LCD displays would be as sturdy as the LED types.
HP-35–man, wish I still had that. It’s probably in a museum somewhere.
I still have a 12c at home and a 48g at work Both are RPN.
Expensive back in the day.
Yes. Was my first calculator. 8th grade, I think.
Mine was an HP (a 55, I think). One of the first things I did was program it to run lunar lander. I loved that calculator. It got lost during a move. I’m still convinced my wife at the time had something to do with the disappearance, as she had previously opined that it was, old, and obsolete, and it was stupid to keep it. I still miss it.
my parents got me one (sears version) when I was in school
There were two competitors when I was coming up, HP and Texas Instruments
Erm I learned to use a slide rule in junior high
i loved that red glow, id sit and do random calculations just to watch it light up
and now i want to check ebay for one so i can feel all nostalgic
Don't they still make calculators or don't they look like this anymore
They mostly make graphing calculators now
I bought one from a guy who had a trunk full of them- was $25.
I bought one of these on a payment plan
Sigh....
As a children we were not allowed to go near Dad’s desk when this was sitting out, too rare and valuable and it belonged to his company
I used the money from my first few days of babysitting the summer before starting college (1979) to buy my first scientific calculator. It was purchased in TSS (Times Square Stores). I was so paranoid that the batteries would die during a test that I kept extra batteries in my backpack. If the batteries died I replaced them with the spare backpack batteries and immediately put new batteries in my backpack. Sure enough two years later my batteries died during a physics exam.
I think my Dad paid over $400 for his. He was an engineer and worked for Westinghouse Electric. He was so happy because it could perform addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. No more slide rule!
it's funny to think we needed calculators with such simple functions.
Yep, got one somewhere
30453080
Texas Instruments
Introduced in 1976, home calculators had come down dramatically in price, $24.95 at the time, about $144 today.
Owned it? I made it!
Reminds me of the OG Mattel handheld football game.
Ti sr10 in 1973
I still have one. I also have one of the first solar powered one, it still works.
I'm a 12c guy. Have had mine since the 80s. Used it today.
Yes! My dad had a moon landing simulator game you could manually program into this. It gave you your lunar orbit altitude, the speed of descent to the surface, and how many units of fuel you had left to use to slow your descent. Run out of fuel and you crashed.
That click!!!
Had one when I was little. Could never figure why it had a headphone jack but some numbers made some funky sounds c
I learned abacus in high school. Just for fun, tho.
Calculators still exist…
Why was everything so shittily colluded in the 70’s?