19 ms·

Old Calculator Web Museum

83 points by sbuttgereit 9y ago

zurp 9y ago
I wish they had an emulator for each that would display values visually as close to the original as possible. You could then test them each out to see how the following result is displayed: 16017 * 5
- once-in-a-while 9y ago
  (are you a baby?)
- once-in-a-while 9y ago
  (Are you a baby?)
mnx 9y ago
Interesting website, clearly a ton of work went into it. If you are like me, and full length paragraphs are impossible to read for you, here's a handy bookmarklet I use for such websites: javascript:(function() { node = document.createElement('style'); node.innerHTML ="body{margin:40px auto;max-width:750px;line-height:1.6;font-size:18px;padding:0 10px; background-color:#eee;}h1,h2,h3{line-height:1.2}"; document.body.appendChild(node);})();
mschaef 9y ago
Very cool... the Museum of HP Calculators is also a good one: http://www.hpmuseum.org/ http://www.hpmuseum.org/ A more user-oriented HP site is here: https://www.hpcalc.org/ https://www.hpcalc.org/ These were really amazing little machines, particularly for their time. HP had a custom CPU architecture optimized for low power consumption and calculator operations (think BCD floating point). By the time they got to the HP-28C and -19B, they had a custom OS/Language that had elements of both Forth and Lisp, and was pervasive throughout the software stack. (ie: the user programming language was a subset of the same language HP used to program the calculator itself.)
- ghaff 9y ago
  I still think the HP-41CX was the pinnacle. I did buy a 28(something) at one point but I didn't love it. It probably didn't help that, by that time, I didn't really need a powerful scientific calculator for work and would just do most things on a computer anyway.
  - mschaef 9y ago
    > I still think the HP-41CX was the pinnacle. You might also have liked the 42S... it was built to be as a more direct successor to the 41's. The UI is much more similar to the 41 than the 28/48/etc. > I did buy a 28(something) at one point but I didn't love it. The 28/48 was much more powerful, but it was also a fairly radical shift in approach. The interface got heavier weight, with more to interpret on the display, more keystrokes for many operations, and just generally more to manage. I liked it, but in retrospect mainly because it was a portable computer I could play around with during school, etc. I think it's also the case that HP's interest in the calculator market was falling off right as RPL (19B, 28, 48, ...) was hitting its stride. TI took over the educational market starting with the TI-30 and TI-81, and computers took over the professional market - so there wasn't much room anymore for a professional HP calculator by the time the early 90's rolled around. (Or at least not enough of a market for the calculator business unit to gain traction within HP to fund its development efforts. My guess is that, as is often the case, the opportunity cost of pursuing a relatively small market was viewed to be excessive when there were other things to do.) The contrast between the 1972 introduction of the HP-35 and 1993's 48-GX is also striking. The HP-35 got developed because the 'H' of HP wanted it, and even then, he commissioned market research studies and held back the usual development funding. Once developed, the HP-35 sold well, even at >$2K 2016 dollars, due to the fact that the best alternative was either a slide rule or a minicomputer. If it took that much political power within 1972-era HP to sell a product with a such a compelling advantage, it's not hard to see how badly the complete landscape shifted against further calculator development by the time the 90's rolled around. All that's to say that the RPL platform only got a couple rounds of significant internal development funding by HP. At one point, I'd have really liked to see what they could've done with another round or two of development. And then I graduated high school, got more access to real computers, and it didn't really matter any more.
lasermike026 9y ago
They are beautiful, aren't they?
- jacquesm 9y ago
  The fully mechanical ones are amazing machines, algorithms frozen in gears and levers.
  - lostlogin 9y ago
    The Curta is awesome. Styled as some sort of combination of hand grenade and camera lens. For “maths on the run.” http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/curta2.html http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/curta2.html Edit: check out its case and the tear down, it’s so great. At the end is the ‘Iron Felix’, a Stalin era arithmometer, which is a bit less compact. http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate-curta-mechanical.html?m=1 http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate...
  - flavio81 9y ago
    Yet there is also the Friden electronic, fully electronic but simply amazing for it's time (1965?): It had CRT vector display of numbers ... For 1965 on a table-top model! And memory was realized via a mechanic delay line, where the bits traveled around a loop, mechanically!
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      I just spent an hour reading that same entry, absolutely amazing tech for the time and that they got that to work reliably enough for a mass market product is really amazing engineering.
CGamesPlay 9y ago
Numberphile just yesterday published a video on a pretty neat electronic calculator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BIx2x-Q2fE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BIx2x-Q2fE
- sbuttgereit 9y ago
  Actually, it was that Numberphile video's description where I first saw the link to the to the Old Calculator Web Museum. Great video.
- waiseristy 9y ago
  This calculator seems pretty popular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fie-Z-mjnyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fie-Z-mjnyU
owenversteeg 9y ago
I collect old calculators myself! These old machines are really gorgeous things, usually handmade (at least until the early 70s.) If anyone on HN has questions, I'd be happy to answer.
- Something1234 9y ago
  Which is your favorite? Do you have any really unique ones?
  - owenversteeg 9y ago
    Some of my favorites: Mach 1 Slide Rulette - made in 1972, one of my older ones. Has a really nice glowing green VFD, vacuum fluorescent display. Obviously very well made. Sears M8 - made in 1973 by Sears, came in a nice black leather carrying case. The side of the calculator has an orange stripe down it, which makes the whole thing look gorgeous. Sharp EL-827 - made in 1981, my #1 favorite, a musical calculator. It's fairly quiet, but you can hear it in a quiet room easily. The keys each have different notes for them, so you can play songs on it. I've learned a handful of songs on it myself. A really tiny, little, gorgeous thing - slimline, brushed metal, super thin. Just beautiful.
    - Something1234 9y ago
      Can you post some more about musical calculators? I've never heard of a musical calculator.
      - owenversteeg 9y ago
        Sure. Musical calculators were initially made for the blind (so when you press a key, you hear a sound and can tell what's happening.) When you press equals, for example, the calculation happens and the calculator sounds out the tones for the answer - for example, you enter 9x9=81, and you get (9 tone) (multiply tone) (9 tone) (equals tone) and then the calculator sounds out (eight tone) (one tone). Eventually people started using them as toys or musical instruments, so some calculator companies started making the sounds less robotic and more musical - and now there are "musical calculators".
triptych 9y ago
You can also see emulations of TI based calculators here https://www.cemetech.net/projects/jstified/ https://www.cemetech.net/projects/jstified/
Cbasedlifeform 9y ago
Strangely (I think) this doesn't mention the Sinclair calculators, one of which I purchased in the mid-Seventies and still have in a box somewhere. It was minimalist but gorgeous. I'd like to dig it out now and carry it around... would be v hipster. It's long ago but mine might have been the Sinclair Cambridge Scientific: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/cambridge_scienific.html http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/cambridge_scienific.h... What hath god wrought!
- Someone 9y ago
  That’s an amazing hack. Cutting a lot of corners, the entire program of the calculator is 320 instructions, on a cpu that doesn’t even have a ‘multiply’ instruction. See http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul...
  - tdeck 9y ago
    If you like old calculator hacks, you might be interested to know that some early calculators (such as those from Wang[1]) could natively perform only addition, subtraction, e^x, and the natural log. So to multiply numbers, they took e^(ln(a) + ln(b)). See also: factor combining [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC#Factor_combining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC#Factor_combining
    - golem14 9y ago
      That's numberwang!!
- sporkologist 9y ago
  I had the Radio Shack version, the EC-4001. http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/RadioShackEC4001.JPG http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/RadioShackEC...
jacquesm 9y ago
It's an interesting historical fact that the modern CPU was invented specifically to power a desk calculator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 There is a direct line back from the Intel x86 architecture all the way back to that 4004. Another neat little item in the same line: http://curta.org/ http://curta.org/ I've been on the lookout for an affordable one for the longest time but so far no luck.
tonyedgecombe 9y ago
We had an Olivetti Programma 101 at school, I remember programming it during maths. This must have been about 1979.
rabidvermin 9y ago
Fittingly, the design of the web pages looks straight out of a museum itself!
Karnickel 9y ago
My grandfathers mechanical calculator (German): https://i.imgur.com/jBDUHPp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jBDUHPp.jpg He used it even though he had an electronic calculator. Common business calculations seemed to perform much faster and more reliably than on the electronic calculator (1980s). You had to check every single number and operation you typed into the electronic calculator, but you could do quite a bit without looking, just by feel, with this mechanical one. Multiplication for example, you just turn the crank handle for each round.
scrumper 9y ago
Fantastic, and nicely written personal commentary on each one too. This is a real treasure. I think I like the Sumtronics Comptometer the most, for its excellent name and its vacuum tube internals. The Mathatron is a close second.
macintux 9y ago
My collection of RPN calculators. Sadly I have no reason to ever use them. https://www.dropbox.com/s/tovgotxn0lmmjg2/File%20Dec%2001%2C%203%2042%2045%20PM.jpeg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/tovgotxn0lmmjg2/File%20Dec%2001%2C...
- tinbucket 9y ago
  Nice collection. I'm jealous. I missed out on the 15C re-release when it was available. I don't really have a use for it, but I really did want one. I've got a couple of 12Cs and an 11C. I use them occasionally, whenever I need to do some maths that's not complicated enough to warrant firing up Excel but too much for my feeble mental maths.
  - macintux 9y ago
    I don't remember how I was lucky enough to find out about the 15C in advance, but I jumped all over that. Several years ago I took a university final and the requirement was a non-programmable calculator. I looked on eBay and discovered how expensive an 11C would be, so I went to the professor and explained that I was by this point in life incapable of using an algebraic calculator and pleaded to be able to use one of my HPs instead. Thankfully he didn't care.
- 0x445442 9y ago
  That Commodore looks really cool. Thanks for sharing.
  - macintux 9y ago
    Amazing what you can find on eBay once you know it exists.
mtve 9y ago
You may check "Soviet Digital Electronic Museum" by Sergei Frolov: http://www.leningrad.su/museum/main.php?lang=1 http://www.leningrad.su/museum/main.php?lang=1
tdeck 9y ago
I spent hours on this similarly named website back in early high school: http://www.vintagecalculators.com http://www.vintagecalculators.com Great details about old and exotic display and memory technologies too.
dwarman 9y ago
Still have ny HP41C, with XMEM etc, but no longer carry it with me since i41CX came out for the iOS devices. Inludes all the rom extensions too. When I get the energy the system is for sale - printer needs new batteries, card reader needs TLC or replacing. I also had but sole an HP16 programmers calculator, since there is also now an iOS (and OS X) version. PRG 16C. My first was a Bowen around 1964/5, then an HP 35 in 73?. Sharp made what is likely the first BASIC programmabe (actually they labelled it, I recently found several OEMs of it) that really impressed me. I have no idea what happened to mine. Also have still a Radio Shack Programmer's calculator.
mvdwoord 9y ago
Awesome! On a side note, if anybody finds themselves near Bonn (Germany), do yourself a favor and visit the Arithmeum. "The Arithmeum presents the history of mechanical calculating machines, as well as the computing of today, in an aesthetically pleasing environment. Many demonstration models invite the visitor to discover the historical milestones of mechanical calculating, and at interactive multimedia stations the visitor can develop small microprocessors in a playful way. Early highlights in the development of computers are also exhibited." http://www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de/en/arithmeum.html http://www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de/en/arithmeum.html
dboreham 9y ago
Never understood the appeal of the reverse polish HP calculators. TI-59 all the way.

83 points by sbuttgereit 9y ago

zurp 9y ago

I wish they had an emulator for each that would display values visually as close to the original as possible. You could then test them each out to see how the following result is displayed: 16017 * 5

once-in-a-while 9y ago
(are you a baby?)
once-in-a-while 9y ago
(Are you a baby?)

mnx 9y ago

Interesting website, clearly a ton of work went into it. If you are like me, and full length paragraphs are impossible to read for you, here's a handy bookmarklet I use for such websites: javascript:(function() { node = document.createElement('style'); node.innerHTML ="body{margin:40px auto;max-width:750px;line-height:1.6;font-size:18px;padding:0 10px; background-color:#eee;}h1,h2,h3{line-height:1.2}"; document.body.appendChild(node);})();

mschaef 9y ago

Very cool... the Museum of HP Calculators is also a good one: http://www.hpmuseum.org/ http://www.hpmuseum.org/ A more user-oriented HP site is here: https://www.hpcalc.org/ https://www.hpcalc.org/ These were really amazing little machines, particularly for their time. HP had a custom CPU architecture optimized for low power consumption and calculator operations (think BCD floating point). By the time they got to the HP-28C and -19B, they had a custom OS/Language that had elements of both Forth and Lisp, and was pervasive throughout the software stack. (ie: the user programming language was a subset of the same language HP used to program the calculator itself.)

ghaff 9y ago
I still think the HP-41CX was the pinnacle. I did buy a 28(something) at one point but I didn't love it. It probably didn't help that, by that time, I didn't really need a powerful scientific calculator for work and would just do most things on a computer anyway.
- mschaef 9y ago
  > I still think the HP-41CX was the pinnacle. You might also have liked the 42S... it was built to be as a more direct successor to the 41's. The UI is much more similar to the 41 than the 28/48/etc. > I did buy a 28(something) at one point but I didn't love it. The 28/48 was much more powerful, but it was also a fairly radical shift in approach. The interface got heavier weight, with more to interpret on the display, more keystrokes for many operations, and just generally more to manage. I liked it, but in retrospect mainly because it was a portable computer I could play around with during school, etc. I think it's also the case that HP's interest in the calculator market was falling off right as RPL (19B, 28, 48, ...) was hitting its stride. TI took over the educational market starting with the TI-30 and TI-81, and computers took over the professional market - so there wasn't much room anymore for a professional HP calculator by the time the early 90's rolled around. (Or at least not enough of a market for the calculator business unit to gain traction within HP to fund its development efforts. My guess is that, as is often the case, the opportunity cost of pursuing a relatively small market was viewed to be excessive when there were other things to do.) The contrast between the 1972 introduction of the HP-35 and 1993's 48-GX is also striking. The HP-35 got developed because the 'H' of HP wanted it, and even then, he commissioned market research studies and held back the usual development funding. Once developed, the HP-35 sold well, even at >$2K 2016 dollars, due to the fact that the best alternative was either a slide rule or a minicomputer. If it took that much political power within 1972-era HP to sell a product with a such a compelling advantage, it's not hard to see how badly the complete landscape shifted against further calculator development by the time the 90's rolled around. All that's to say that the RPL platform only got a couple rounds of significant internal development funding by HP. At one point, I'd have really liked to see what they could've done with another round or two of development. And then I graduated high school, got more access to real computers, and it didn't really matter any more.

lasermike026 9y ago

They are beautiful, aren't they?

jacquesm 9y ago
The fully mechanical ones are amazing machines, algorithms frozen in gears and levers.
- lostlogin 9y ago
  The Curta is awesome. Styled as some sort of combination of hand grenade and camera lens. For “maths on the run.” http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/curta2.html http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/curta2.html Edit: check out its case and the tear down, it’s so great. At the end is the ‘Iron Felix’, a Stalin era arithmometer, which is a bit less compact. http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate-curta-mechanical.html?m=1 http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/09/stunningly-intricate...
- flavio81 9y ago
  Yet there is also the Friden electronic, fully electronic but simply amazing for it's time (1965?): It had CRT vector display of numbers ... For 1965 on a table-top model! And memory was realized via a mechanic delay line, where the bits traveled around a loop, mechanically!
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    I just spent an hour reading that same entry, absolutely amazing tech for the time and that they got that to work reliably enough for a mass market product is really amazing engineering.

CGamesPlay 9y ago

Numberphile just yesterday published a video on a pretty neat electronic calculator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BIx2x-Q2fE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BIx2x-Q2fE

sbuttgereit 9y ago
Actually, it was that Numberphile video's description where I first saw the link to the to the Old Calculator Web Museum. Great video.
waiseristy 9y ago
This calculator seems pretty popular https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fie-Z-mjnyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fie-Z-mjnyU

owenversteeg 9y ago

I collect old calculators myself! These old machines are really gorgeous things, usually handmade (at least until the early 70s.) If anyone on HN has questions, I'd be happy to answer.

Something1234 9y ago
Which is your favorite? Do you have any really unique ones?
- owenversteeg 9y ago
  Some of my favorites: Mach 1 Slide Rulette - made in 1972, one of my older ones. Has a really nice glowing green VFD, vacuum fluorescent display. Obviously very well made. Sears M8 - made in 1973 by Sears, came in a nice black leather carrying case. The side of the calculator has an orange stripe down it, which makes the whole thing look gorgeous. Sharp EL-827 - made in 1981, my #1 favorite, a musical calculator. It's fairly quiet, but you can hear it in a quiet room easily. The keys each have different notes for them, so you can play songs on it. I've learned a handful of songs on it myself. A really tiny, little, gorgeous thing - slimline, brushed metal, super thin. Just beautiful.
  - Something1234 9y ago
    Can you post some more about musical calculators? I've never heard of a musical calculator.
    - owenversteeg 9y ago
      Sure. Musical calculators were initially made for the blind (so when you press a key, you hear a sound and can tell what's happening.) When you press equals, for example, the calculation happens and the calculator sounds out the tones for the answer - for example, you enter 9x9=81, and you get (9 tone) (multiply tone) (9 tone) (equals tone) and then the calculator sounds out (eight tone) (one tone). Eventually people started using them as toys or musical instruments, so some calculator companies started making the sounds less robotic and more musical - and now there are "musical calculators".

triptych 9y ago

You can also see emulations of TI based calculators here https://www.cemetech.net/projects/jstified/ https://www.cemetech.net/projects/jstified/

Cbasedlifeform 9y ago

Strangely (I think) this doesn't mention the Sinclair calculators, one of which I purchased in the mid-Seventies and still have in a box somewhere. It was minimalist but gorgeous. I'd like to dig it out now and carry it around... would be v hipster. It's long ago but mine might have been the Sinclair Cambridge Scientific: http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/cambridge_scienific.html http://www.vintagecalculators.com/html/cambridge_scienific.h... What hath god wrought!

Someone 9y ago
That’s an amazing hack. Cutting a lot of corners, the entire program of the calculator is 320 instructions, on a cpu that doesn’t even have a ‘multiply’ instruction. See http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simulator.html http://files.righto.com/calculator/sinclair_scientific_simul...
- tdeck 9y ago
  If you like old calculator hacks, you might be interested to know that some early calculators (such as those from Wang[1]) could natively perform only addition, subtraction, e^x, and the natural log. So to multiply numbers, they took e^(ln(a) + ln(b)). See also: factor combining [2] [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC#Factor_combining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CORDIC#Factor_combining
  - golem14 9y ago
    That's numberwang!!
sporkologist 9y ago
I had the Radio Shack version, the EC-4001. http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/RadioShackEC4001.JPG http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/RadioShackEC...

jacquesm 9y ago

It's an interesting historical fact that the modern CPU was invented specifically to power a desk calculator. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_4004 There is a direct line back from the Intel x86 architecture all the way back to that 4004. Another neat little item in the same line: http://curta.org/ http://curta.org/ I've been on the lookout for an affordable one for the longest time but so far no luck.

tonyedgecombe 9y ago

We had an Olivetti Programma 101 at school, I remember programming it during maths. This must have been about 1979.

rabidvermin 9y ago

Fittingly, the design of the web pages looks straight out of a museum itself!

Karnickel 9y ago

My grandfathers mechanical calculator (German): https://i.imgur.com/jBDUHPp.jpg https://i.imgur.com/jBDUHPp.jpg He used it even though he had an electronic calculator. Common business calculations seemed to perform much faster and more reliably than on the electronic calculator (1980s). You had to check every single number and operation you typed into the electronic calculator, but you could do quite a bit without looking, just by feel, with this mechanical one. Multiplication for example, you just turn the crank handle for each round.

scrumper 9y ago

Fantastic, and nicely written personal commentary on each one too. This is a real treasure. I think I like the Sumtronics Comptometer the most, for its excellent name and its vacuum tube internals. The Mathatron is a close second.

macintux 9y ago

My collection of RPN calculators. Sadly I have no reason to ever use them. https://www.dropbox.com/s/tovgotxn0lmmjg2/File%20Dec%2001%2C%203%2042%2045%20PM.jpeg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/tovgotxn0lmmjg2/File%20Dec%2001%2C...

tinbucket 9y ago
Nice collection. I'm jealous. I missed out on the 15C re-release when it was available. I don't really have a use for it, but I really did want one. I've got a couple of 12Cs and an 11C. I use them occasionally, whenever I need to do some maths that's not complicated enough to warrant firing up Excel but too much for my feeble mental maths.
- macintux 9y ago
  I don't remember how I was lucky enough to find out about the 15C in advance, but I jumped all over that. Several years ago I took a university final and the requirement was a non-programmable calculator. I looked on eBay and discovered how expensive an 11C would be, so I went to the professor and explained that I was by this point in life incapable of using an algebraic calculator and pleaded to be able to use one of my HPs instead. Thankfully he didn't care.
0x445442 9y ago
That Commodore looks really cool. Thanks for sharing.
- macintux 9y ago
  Amazing what you can find on eBay once you know it exists.

mtve 9y ago

You may check "Soviet Digital Electronic Museum" by Sergei Frolov: http://www.leningrad.su/museum/main.php?lang=1 http://www.leningrad.su/museum/main.php?lang=1

tdeck 9y ago

I spent hours on this similarly named website back in early high school: http://www.vintagecalculators.com http://www.vintagecalculators.com Great details about old and exotic display and memory technologies too.

dwarman 9y ago

Still have ny HP41C, with XMEM etc, but no longer carry it with me since i41CX came out for the iOS devices. Inludes all the rom extensions too. When I get the energy the system is for sale - printer needs new batteries, card reader needs TLC or replacing. I also had but sole an HP16 programmers calculator, since there is also now an iOS (and OS X) version. PRG 16C. My first was a Bowen around 1964/5, then an HP 35 in 73?. Sharp made what is likely the first BASIC programmabe (actually they labelled it, I recently found several OEMs of it) that really impressed me. I have no idea what happened to mine. Also have still a Radio Shack Programmer's calculator.

mvdwoord 9y ago

Awesome! On a side note, if anybody finds themselves near Bonn (Germany), do yourself a favor and visit the Arithmeum. "The Arithmeum presents the history of mechanical calculating machines, as well as the computing of today, in an aesthetically pleasing environment. Many demonstration models invite the visitor to discover the historical milestones of mechanical calculating, and at interactive multimedia stations the visitor can develop small microprocessors in a playful way. Early highlights in the development of computers are also exhibited." http://www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de/en/arithmeum.html http://www.arithmeum.uni-bonn.de/en/arithmeum.html

dboreham 9y ago

Never understood the appeal of the reverse polish HP calculators. TI-59 all the way.