I graduated high school in 1980. As I was in the advanced math track at the time, we did first year college calculus taught by the local college professor who came to our class at the high school. One of the guys in the class had a TI58 or similar calculator. The teacher used him to check our work when we were doing matrices, it was faster than doing it by longhand!

I remember seeing the same student on a tv show of CalTech when they had some sort of sophmores vs. the seniors thing, this guy was on a team trying to break into a room that had been “secured” by the senior team. Ahh the memories!

That’s a good one, Super-FX!

Check this three-chip Sanyo CX-8001 found at the Salvation Army last week. These were made from 1973-74. The Sanyo CX-8001 is even thicker than an opened G3 iBook (closed, the iBook is slightly thicker). I picked it up for 99¢.

Photo: Copyright ©2007 Bryan Andersen

You mentioned using your Casio calculator in the late-’70s in school. As late as 1976, there was still a controversy about students using electronic calculators in class. UCLA had an interesting approach. It reminds us of how expensive these “computers” were in their heyday. Here’s a quote from a book on pocket calculators, published in the US Bicentennial year.

Naturally, there are loud protests about the use of pocket calculators in college. For one, those students who, for economic reasons, do not own a calculator may be put at a disadvantage. This problem of economic discrimination can be solved in various ways …

[One] approach would be to rent calculators. Already some institutions, like the University of California at Los Angeles, have found it worthwhile to do so, and, in fact, the University is expanding its service, launched in 1973. Beginning with a choice of two models it is expanding the choice of models to five and hopes to have about 200 units for rent. They can be rented by the hour, day, week, month, or quarter and the rental charges vary from 50¢ and hour for the basic four-function calculator to $50 a quarter for the sophisticated multifunction models.¹

For more on the Sharp CX-8001, click here. Thanks for your compliment, comments, and photo. Enjoy your number cruncher!

Notes

1. Mullish, Henry.The Complete Pocket Calculator Handbook. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1976, pp. 248-249 (ISBN 0-02-587920-0)

As an aside, Programmable calculators have a special place in my heart, that’s how I got my start in computers and IT. Maybe I’ll do an article on that elsewhere and link back to it..