LGR Tech Tales - The Pocket Calculator Wars
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- This episode covers the rise of the pocket and scientific calculators in the 1960's and 70's, and how they affected tech history!
Join me in LGR Tech Tales, looking at stories of technological inspiration, failure, and everything in-between!
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My math teacher circa 1995 "You won't always have a calculator available to you!"
Stick it in your eye, teacher.
+The Obsolete Geek
You won't always have a smart phone with sufficient battery left with you ..
Nukle0n
What's next ? You wanna tell me that you also don't need to learn how to make a hand axe for being able to hunt mammoths or your neighbor's dachshund when hungry ?
+Frank Schneider You will if you keep a couple of battery banks charged up, and your like me, and keep them in your daily backpack. Also I have a Moto G3 2015 I pulled off my charger this morning at 7:30 AM eastern time, and it's now 2:20 pm eastern time, and I still have 93% battery life left. So newer smartphones have gotten way better on battery life for sure.
Commodorefan64
I prefer to use my private phone just for calls, so I use a rater old phone. Therefore charge lasts (depending on cal frequency of course) around 2 weeks.
Frank Schneider I'm not sure if you are in the US, but if you are, and have a GSM phone on an AT&T tower that's only using 2G you will be forced to upgrade at some point because AT&T is slowly shutting down 2G to make way for more 3G and 4G LTE . Same with T-Mobile if I remember correctly.
Can wait to see a version of this video about Smartphones in a decade or so
+fununcle "Most people do these things using their glasses, but there was a time where you needed a thing called 'a smartphone' to do them"
***** it was nothing like what we thought it would be... I'm having high hopes for Microsoft's "HoloLens", though
+Sergiu Pop I'm still waiting on my neural interface. Pffft people used to do things with their hands? with their eyes? Hold on I need to download myself into my drone.
Apple is basically Ti and Samsung is Casio. Every other cheap graphing calculator is a cheap fake samsung phone.
8 years later i dont think this is happening 😭😭
Even thought I was born in 1985, after the bulk of the war occurred, I saw the after effects as a kid. Even though basic scientific calculators don't offer much in the way of entertainment, I was fascinated by them as a kid, and because of said war, it always seemed like each person had a different one. I just loved tapping away on the buttons, even though I wasn't in true need of a calculator.
I never knew graphing calculators existed until my brother was well into high school and got one. He barely ever let me look at it, but when I entered high school and he got a new one, he passed his old TI-86 graphing calculator to me. The fun part about it was that I rarely used it to calculate or do graphs for homework.
You see we of course weren't allowed to have handheld gaming devices out while in school, but my graphing calculator got around that. So while in study hall, I would turn on my graphing calculator and play crude but still fun versions of either Tetris or Super Mario Bros. I also ended up programming funny little fortune telling program that had over 100 different fortunes to hand out depending on what number the player chose. Of course when I was really bored, I would input various graph equations and then press enter, which layer all the graphs of the equations in such a way to make intricate drawings/designs.
I don't know where it is now. It is very distinct though, as back when I was a sophomore in high school a friend of mine stole it for a class period and covered it in forest camouflage duct tape.
I hope you find that calculator
You have reached your limit on talking, shut up
Man, I remember when anything with a digital display was sci fi. The fits that where thrown when a watch with a digital display came out. Then the whole calculator watches came out..
+Amesie's Automotive Corner I feel old now..
Your voice really fits the "history of" type of content. Really easy to listen to and interesting. Keep up the good work.
HP Calculators have another interesting feature. All of them used Reverse Polish Notation instead of Algebraic notation for all calculations.
This meant that the numbers being calculated were entered into a stack and then the operator was given. I.E.
5
ENTER
3
ENTER
*
=15
As a result calculations could be executed in massive chains and done much quicker then calculators by Ti, and this really shined in their graphing calculators with 64 bit-ish saturn chips that used nybble data and some other weird 20 bit shit that made it run faster then most Z80 solutions at the time.
I have an HP48G with like 640KB of memory. It's a GREAT calculator, and it can do mathematical operations in a snap.
Love these. Plus RPN basically makes order of operations a natural process. Used the HP calculators since my first, TI calculators always seemed backwards and slow, HP's Saturn and ARM based units ran leagues faster and could easily be programmed in straight C! TI's piddly little crap seemed amateur in comparison.
Communist Ralph Most, not all, HP calculators use RPN. I've got a 22S circa 1987 that just uses regular notation.
That said, I do like RPN a lot. I need to grab a 48GX some time. More numbers more better.
Communist Ralph Most, not all, HP calculators use RPN. I've got a 22S circa 1987 that just uses regular notation.
That said, I do like RPN a lot. I need to grab a 48GX some time. More numbers more better.
A bit annoying first .... brilliant once you got used to. In my 48G+ (128K RAM ... WOWWWWWWWWWww). But seriously .... what a machine.
Yes but went they started making full fledged computers 🙄 Like seriously HP has not changed at all.
This is why I love vintage calculators, they were a real forerunner of technological development over the 60s and 70s.
The calculator wars.So many lives lost,so much destruction.
Robert Whitley my grandfather died during the calculator war in 1978 :(
They couldn't even calculate the costs
Only the dead have seen the end of the calculator wars...
The destruction caused by the Cold War will never match the destruction caused by the Calculator Wars!
Wait, I need some time to process this.
I'm watching a video about calculators
only on LGR would I love it
Glad to hear it :D
His voice is soothing.
CalcuSouls
Top ten calculator waifus
I agree
i never knew a video about calculators could be so interesting. Only LGR could do it.
Glad to see the first episode of Tech Tales for 2016.
Just like everything, innovation weeds out the companies that cannot compete while the strong ones live on for years to come. it's the same reason why there are only a handful of companies making consoles.
It's also very interesting to note how calculators are the reason why computers still exist. It is often a forgotten topic, and I'm glad you touched upon it.
> implying that the console market is innovative
AFGNCAAP the great
As in more features being added. Believe it or not, consoles have grown over the past few decades not in terms of graphics alone, but in terms of overall features.
+Pow3rh0use The important point there is that they must keep innovating + understand the market. Being the first to invent something doesn't guarantee longevity.
Back when I was in school, *many* years ago, everyone and their dog had the Casio fx-82, while I was utterly unfashionable, with a Texas Instruments TI-30. How the other kids laughed, with their fancy LCD displays, when I couldn't see my LED readout on a sunny day.
+Steve Benway (Retro Gaming Collector) We need a video of that... not a run-through, play-through, or anything like that... just you, using the calculator badly.... :D
Sadly, I don't have it any more.
Steve Benway still have an fx 82. it was actually my father's and I still use it
I have a working TI-30
*MANY* years later, the Casio FX82 still remains the norm for Dutch high schools (we have the fx-82MS as standard here)
I showed this video to my dad, who was an engineer around this time period. He and his buds used to get together with their calculators and have calculator races. They would input complex equations and see whose was the fastest.
That's awesome, I hope he enjoyed!
YAY! I was hopeing tech tales wasn't a dead series. As much as I love all of your content, these always fascinate me the most. Probably takes quite a bit of work too, so thanks for all you do man. It means a lot!
I remember seeing these calculators in the 80s, and getting so excited to just play with all of the scientific functions on them. I think I got my first calculator sometime around 78 or 79, when I got to fifth grade. I also got my dad's old slide rule at that time and learned how to use it. In middle school (about 1982) I had a couple calculator watches too. The real cool nerds all got HP calculators and extolled the virtues of Reverse Polish Notation for making their computations.
But it was extra special for me around 1985 when I was able to purchase my own scientific calculator, a Casio FX-451 for about $25, that is still sitting (and still works) next to my desktop computer. All of the scientific functions were placed on membrane keys on the calculator case. There's a photo of one at Calculator.org.
That was surprisingly interesting. It all makes perfect sense too, the calculator evolved like most tech. Good work LGR.
Just reminded me that I happen to own a vintage calculator from HP, it's a 12c financial calculator, and it's from 1981. I got it as a souvenir from HPE last year, it's still in mint condition, and still able to power on.
Since I'm a 90s kid I've never heard of this war but it was amazing indeed. I just wonder how my grandparents feel seeing the world go through the calculator wars but today having an smartphone. It must be overwhelming to think about it!
awesome video clint, I can't believe calculators played such a huge role in the making of pc's, which lead to the future of technology and science, including SNES consoles, super compact and powerful laptops. Gsync, and OLED displays.. in only a short span of 50 years.
I would love to see a follow up video on this. Also would love to see a spin off tech tales about the console wars or even the video game crash of 1983. Also you are seriously one of my favorite youtube channels, you make great videos and I love every one. Not to mention you are active in your comment community even with videos that are older.
Thank you! I'd like to cover the crash of '83 at some point :)
Ah, memories! I had a Texas Instruments SR-10 in high school, and Dad migrated from his beloved Kueffel und Esser slide rule to a Texas Instruments SR-50 shortly thereafter. In college I switched over to Hewlett Packard and RPN notation and never looked back. Great video!
These videos are just great, and I don't know anyone else doing this kind of documentary style video about these topics. Awesome work, man.
For Calculus 2 (years ago), I bought the TI-Nspire CAS. Wow, the plethora of ways to add 2+2, and in color! Actually, it will draw a 3-D model and rotate it.
Those desktop calculators are freakin sexy! If I had one I would totally look at it once in a while.
This is neither Lazy, nor about Gaming, nor a Review. You, good sir, have transcended yourself over the years. Cheers.
You know if you collated these episodes into a Tech Tales book and included some extra non-video content like scans of articles, interesting stuff from manuals etc I'd totally buy it and I'm sure would many many other people.
3:38 I like how it has a dedicated 420 switch.
My senior year in college I took a history of computing/social media course and she DID NOT discuss calculators AT ALL. But that was years ago.
You should be a professor LGR!!!
Really good stuff here Clint. People tend to forget what a big deal pocket calculators were in the 70's.
Wow! I didn't realize that there was a time in my life when consumer calculators cost $1000! It's amazing the things you don't think about when you live your life not thinking about the technology that whizzes past you in your lifetime. I seem to remember there always being calculators around but I was very young then. Apparently, there was a time in my life when my parents would probably have been doing all their math with a slide rule or the long way on paper.
I’ve got a Friden EC-132 which used to belong to a local college. When it was new in the mid-1960s, it cost about the same as a small house, and looks like something from the bridge of the USS Enterprise. It has a small CRT for the output and inside features eight large circuit boards. It still works perfectly!
Calculators were up there with Speak and Spell, Game and Watch, and Tomy 3D games, when I was in primary school. That soon went out the window when we started getting home computers like the ZX Spectrum and the C64.
+mrpositronia
The speak and spell was not only a great and an icon of today's pop culture, but is still used by some in the music industry (see circuit bending, although they thereby somewhat destroy the poor thing).
+Frank Schneider Really?? Have to look that up.
Thomas Spychalski
The Wikipedia article on Speak & Spell has 2 sections and references on this topic for a start.
Frank Schneider Cheers!! :)
i still remember my first calculator. my parents bought me a scientific calculator for $40 in 1975 as a hs graduation present. per dad's copies of popular science magazine, something similar would have cost $100 in 1974, and in 1973 that same $100 would have gotten you just a basic 4-function calculator. nowadays, the scientific calculator i took to college costs less thän $10 at back to school sales, änd a basic 4-function calculator can be found at any dollar store -- if some company doesn't give you one as a freebie.
Oh man , that brings me back to school and wanting a ti81 so bad. That thing was like the coolest thing ever at the time :D
My grandma had so many calculators from these periods. They were so fun to play with to me for some reason. Which says a lot considering my severe dyscalculia.
What bout typing 80085 to spell "boobs"? How did you leave that out?
Or 0.7734 to spell "hello" upside down.
+SKMCTV I'm guessing you didn't watch to the very end of the video?
he didn't, it were his very last line at the last 2 seconds of the video ;)
Elwin van der Meer
Well he did. Yeah, he didn't type it out, but saying it at the end is a nod to it so, it is the same.
8008135
I knew of the correlation of the calculator industry and the rise of micro computers, but I never knew how deep that connection was. Thanks Clint!
I would like to hear about TIs dominance in the educational market.. I still have my IT 82 plus
Check back next week!
+Lazy Game Reviews :O Omg, really?? You know that this isn't funny, if it's meant to be a joke...!! :O
+biboKralle Not a joke, that's next Monday's video topic :) It's already up on the LGR Patreon page!
Patreon-Supporter-Consideration-Level at 90%, Captain!
+Lazy Game Reviews ti has the major piece of the cake? well, not in germany. her everyone has casio pocket calculators. i also have mine until today. :)
What an interesting episode. I didn't know that calculators were so involved in the computer revolution.
I always enjoy Tech Tales. They are very well presented and you always manage to dig up very interesting stories. Can't wait to see the next one.
I wonder if you could do a Tech Tales about LCD handled games.
Perhaps! I covered them a little bit here already too:
ruclips.net/video/_IFEEN7ep1A/видео.html
+GreyWolfLeaderTW I still have my Nintendo Mini Classics Super Mario Bros, I play it since I was very young and I have a Brick Game a Tetris low cost clone. I think I had more but I don't have them now.
gotta love the fact that even the arguments on this particular video are fairly wholesome X'''D
honestly a good scientific calculator is still very necessary for school and research work.
Great video, Clint! Only you could make a historic look at calculator development interesting to watch.
I've seen a number of videos where the calculator wars are mentioned as an aside, particularly relating to Commodore and their battle with TI (TI being their early IC supplier, raised the price of their components to try to force competitors out of the calculator market which they were trying to dominate, which led to Commodore purchasing MOS Tech so they had their own IC production division, which directly led to the PET), but this is the first video I've seen which focused on the Calculator producers as a whole, and it was just as interesting as the micro-computer wars to come!
This was great. I Still have Two Model 600 National Semiconductor calculators (6 digit.4 function and no D.P.)
Awesome video! You covered pretty much all the bases here.
I'd love to see a video about the rise of the graphing calculator and the competition between TI and Casio. It would be a good opportunity to explain things like why the TI-83 Plus is still the most popular one 17 years after its launch, or why TI's units are so much more expensive than Casio's.
Check back next week!
I still rock a Casio scientific calculator, screw phones.
I second that!
What do you calculate with it tho
Who'd have thought the pocket calculator history would be so fascinating? Great work and many thanks for making it.
""No heaven? But where do all the calculators go?"
Man this is great. I had a HP-67 Programmable calculator in early 1976 and later a HP-41c.
I did have simpler calculators several years earlier.
There was a huge user library for the HP-67 in many scientific and engineering fields along with mathematics.There were also hundreds of games developed for it was well.
The HP-67 could also used the previous programs used by the older HP-65.
It was also very easy to program by yourself and used magnetic strips to store programs on with a motorized card reader built into it.
Sony was like "Who wants to use the calculator and computer anyway ?"
Jokes on them lmao
Thank you. IMHO, pocket calculators are still awesome since there is something about how they look and feel that I prefer over a cell phone. And a computer is still a calculator at heart. It's fun to see people's reactions when I'm using a early 1980s HP-11c calculator though.
God damn it LGR, you're the only person who can make calculators this interesting.
I think this is becoming one of my favorite series of yours.
New LGR!!!! :D
+Fuk this Sh1t
I like your username and picture
Kuda gitsune thanks?......
Nice Sony Trinitron CRT pixels :)
You should totally do a Tech Tales on those old PDAs! I'd watch it. Especially if the Gizmondo/N-Gage disasters of "OH GOD WHY DID WE THINK TO COMBINE A PDA WITH A GAME CONSOLE" get mentioned too.
Interesting and well presented (imo) review.
BTW, there were hand held calculators years before these little electronic babies came about...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta
I had a section in this video about Curta, but cut it due to wanting to keep more focused on the 70's calculator war.
Very articulate and interesting. Tech Tales is probably my favorite series on your channel, really great to see a new one.
I have a Sharp ELSI MATE EL-5001 that dad bought many many years ago still runs well and use it in the shop love the Green display on it.
Crazy crazy history. In about 10 years a brand new and until-recently impossible market became oversaturated. In 1973 the first sceintific calculator, the hp-35, launched for 395 dollars. 4 years later in 1977, the EL-500 was available for 14.95. About 1/26th of the price (which I actually just calculated on my EL-500 I own)
My favorite video on this channel so far!
Awesome to hear :)
Heck yea. Been waiting for a new Tech Tales. Awesome start to the new year!
LGR, I know that earlier Pentium CPUs had issues with floating point calculations. Did earlier (or cheap) calculators using chips have similar problems with accuracy?
+Roverd26 The biggest problem is that some operations took a lot longer to complete than others, even when using the same operator (the square root function was notorious for this) - some combinations of numbers would calculate instantly, other combinations would take a few seconds. However, there were also a few inaccuracy issues with operations like square roots in some of the earliest calculators that supported them (there was one buggy calculator-on-a-chip type from early on), but the errors generally weren't all that huge.
+Roverd26 Calculators and computers have always had computational quirks and limited precision, but these were well-known and disclosed to programmers and users. The reason why the Pentium FDIV bug became a scandal was because Intel tried to keep it a secret, and even after it became known, they insisted that it wasn't a serious problem and that the average user would never be affected by it. Intel was actually correct, as the chance of the error occuring in normal use was extremely rare, but once the story hit the mainstream news, the PR fallout was huge and Intel ultimately agreed to recall and replace all the affected Pentium chips.
+Roverd26 All calculators have limited precision, and it will be different for each calculator. A neat way to demonstrate it is to calculate arcsin(arccos(arctan(tan(cos(sin(9)))))). The answer is 9, but different calculators will produce results of varying accuracy, and earlier calculators are indeed worse.
Of the calculators I have here on hand, the best is a Casio FX-991MS with 9.000000007 (even my $160 TI-84 Plus CE is worse), and the worst is a circa 1978 HP-33E with 9.0004.
I've seen only computers and cell phones reproduce the exact answer.
+themaritimeman Just tried it. I got 9.
+James Walker What's your calculator?
yes! love your tech tales series! I was hoping you'd mention the TI-85 in there, that's where I jumped ship from the calculator wars myself haha.
why was this so fascinating?
Making it fascinating was a calculated move on my part. It really adds up, huh?
+Lazy Game Reviews That was just painful
My two reactions when I see a Tech Tales episode:
- I was wondering about that
- Oooh interesting
If anything else good topic choices man. Go ahead, make my day!
I have an HP 28C calculator that was built with BASIC as the main kernel circa 1986. It needed contact cleaning as functions stopped working, but now works again. The reason why I say it's BASIC is you have to press enter after typing a number in, type another number in, and press either add, subtract, divide, multiply.
well done! I love classic portable calculators. one of your best videos so far. happy new year
Wow. This was amazing. I knew some of the pocket calculator history but not all, really nothing compared to me knowing so much right now. Thank you Clint, keep it up!
$25000 for a freaking calculator? I'm never gonna complain again about the price of high-end graphic cards.
Man those old calculators look all sorts of bad ass with those lovely red displays.
Also did not know there was this much history in the lil beasties.
Fantastic video. Made me get all nostalgic for the early 80's when I was a kid playing with my Dad's calculators.
This was very helpful in my understanding of why my dad got so many calculators for his bar mitzvah. I was always a bit confused when he told me that.
This was a great video. You've done a great job of summarizing the calculator wars & history during the 60s and 70s. Do you have a copy of our book, Collector's Guide to Pocket Calculators, www.amazon.com/Collectors-Guide-Pocket-Calculators-Bruce/dp/1888840145? I'll be happy to drop a copy in the mail to you.
I do not, but that looks great!
Guy Ball how much is it?
Normally through amazon, it's $20 plus $4 for US mailing.
I wouldn't have expected that topic to be fascinating but it was. Well done!
Dude go get a teaching degree and teach tech history.
I'm quite happy to teach on the internet for free and reach millions, instead of in a small room to dozens, but thank you :)
You sir are awesome! I honestly never knew how much of an impact the calculator had on the uprise of the pc! Thumbs up to you good sir!
It's always interesting how a technology that seems so advanced eventually ends up in museums as hopelessly obsolete. The advent of smartphones with calculator apps and spreadsheet apps pretty much ends pocket calculators as separate devices. I have a calculator app on my smartphone that includes a Computer Algebra System for symbolic computations, and I also have Microsoft Excel running on the phone. So why carry around a separate calculator too?
I still have my old ass Casio FX-270W Plus Scientific Calculator laying somwhere.
I remember for that time it being a beast when it comes to various different functions. And it most likley is still working after like 18+ years. Good times.
This is exactly the kind of brief video one of my teachers would have played in Science class before cracking open the texbooks for the rest of the period. I don't say this as a bad thing, just that its informative enough for a classroom.
Ooh, the Casio fx19.... I got shivers! Takes me right back! Great video!
Very interesting. I was not aware that there was so much competition for that market back then. Thanks for covering that!
Only LGR could make a video that get's me interested in the history of pocket calculators.
I totally want one of those build your own calculator kits.
Great video LGR! keep those tech tales coming.
Arguably the most successful calculator (at least in terms of longevity) is the H-P 12C business model. Introduced in 1981 it is still in production nearly 40 years later. I own one from the late 1980's and it is still functioning perfectly. I wore out two similar models by Texas Instruments (TI 35 Business) and finally bought the H-P, the gold standard of pocket calculators.
I still use my TI-2500 Datamath 2 to this day. One of the best designed products I've ever owned. The ubiquity of pocket calculators in the 70's means you can pickup a working vintage model on the cheap on eBay.
So happy you did a new Tech Tales! Thank you.
Had a TI-89 (non-Titanium) all through high school, great calculator. You could program in TI Basic, C, or 68k Assembler and there were tons of games for it :)
thanks man, would have never known that without this series
Just watched all the Tech Tales videos. Cant wait for more!
Craving new episodes of Tech Tales!
My daughter uses a TI calc in her school.
All students MUST use the same model of calc.
It is sold via the school shop for £1 (@ $0.70c) although the exact same model is sold in Asda (large store now owned by Wal-Mart) for £16.99 (@ $13.00)
This massive price saving is to encourage parents to buy the product that is suited for the type of math's they are doing in class.
Great, if rather unexpected video, yay!
What's next? Will there be Tech Tales about, let's say, typewriters? That would be cool!
(Or prehaps television? Radio-technology? Phones and mobiles? Hi-Fi?...)
You actually made the history of calculators entertaining and interesting. Amazing.
You know I think you got now a great prequel episode to "LGR Tech Tales : Commodore" ;-)
I wish my grandma still had her HP 35! I loved playing with that thing as a kid.
Dang, this was a really interesting episode! It's neat how many different companies tried to get in on the calculator business.
Texas Instruments also makes the RoboRio for the high school robotics program FIRST Robotics Competition. Every team gets one every year in the kit of parts that FIRST gives out on the day of Kick Off.
I'm really surprised you didn't talk about the Bomar 901B which I had always heard was the true first "pocket" calculator. I was big into calculator history back in early high school.
another great tech tales episode, I love this series and really appreciate everything you do on your channel, keep up the good work