First automatic calculator I ever saw was a desktop Wang back in '68 or '69
at the U of Minn. in the grad. geology dept.  It sat on the dept. chair's
desk like some sort of holy relic; the faculty took turns using it.

On Thu, Feb 8, 2018 at 9:18 AM, Floyd Thursby via Mercedes <
mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote:

> Back in the late 60s/early 70s my dad, who was an electronics engineer,
> was talking with some guys and sketched out an idea for an electronic
> calculator using whatever ICs were available, or maybe discrete components,
> whatever was available at the time. THe other guys kinda poo-pooed it so he
> never really pursued it. So then a coupla years later a company called
> Bowmar that was in town, and some guys he peripherally knew had started the
> company, built the "Bowmar Brain" which was kinda the first handheld
> calculator.  I don't think he was FOS as he always kicked himself for not
> pursuing the idea at the time.
>
> I could own a whole fleet of Benzes now if he had done that.  Oh, wait...
>
> --FT
>
>
>
>
> On 2/8/18 12:11 AM, Curley McLain via Mercedes wrote:
>
>> My boss at my first real job (drafting) had one of those calculators.  It
>> always amazed me.   In the company Engineering lab, a guy there had a brown
>> and dull screw machine.    My treasured possession at the time was a Post
>> slipstick, that cost me big money ($21) at the Univ book store!  A year
>> later, I was expected to pay athe equivalent of a year's tuition for a HP
>> calculator.   That was a deal breaker.  It was 20 times as much as the
>> slipstick I struggled to buy.
>>
>> Scott Ritchey via Mercedes <mailto:mercedes@okiebenz.com>
>>> February 7, 2018 at 10:58 PM
>>> Well, we had an IBM 360 for heavy-duty number crunching:  batch jobs in
>>> Fortran on punch cards with line-printer output.  None of us could afford
>>> the new HP35 electronic calculator but we did have a Friden mechanical
>>> calculator in the office for routine stuff.  It was capable of division and
>>> we found that dividing all 6s by all 7s produced a tune we called the
>>> Friden March.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> _______________________________________
>> http://www.okiebenz.com
>>
>> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
>>
>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
>>
>>
>>
> --
> --FT
>
>
>
> _______________________________________
> http://www.okiebenz.com
>
> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
>
> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
>
>
_______________________________________
http://www.okiebenz.com

To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/

To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com

Reply via email to