Speaking of old calculators

[mmcirvin]

I remember seeing this on the Web a while back and being amazed: The Friden EC-130 and its successor the EC-132, four-function RPN desk calculators from 1964-65. They cost about $2000 in 1965 dollars.

While they're primitive and hulking by modern standards, and apparently broke all the time because of a manufacturing problem, they're also beautiful, something you'd expect to see Dave Bowman using to override HAL. The interior was all discrete components, and the stack was displayed on a four-line green vector CRT.

Comments

[tempest0402.livejournal.com]

100% discrete. The units look amazing, especially given the design prevalent at the time. I'd hate to know the power consumption...

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

There's much more here. (http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/friden132.html) The nameplate says 115 VAC at 0.6 amps, which I guess would be 69 watts if that's the RMS current. A lot more than a handheld calculator, but modern computing devices often draw more.

[tempest0402.livejournal.com]

'modern computing devices often draw more'

Some do, some don't. The thermal envelope for the Pentium-M is somewhere around 45 watts at mid-load.

'The nameplate says 115 VAC at 0.6 amps, which I guess would be 69 watts if that's the RMS current.'

That'd have to be RMS, since Vp_p is around 165V. I don't imagine that the little buggers were exactly cool running, but I guess they probably didn't work very well before they warmed up anyway.

[tempest0402.livejournal.com]

Speaking of arcane museums - have you been to the LED Museum (http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/)? Anybody with a slogan of "We put the die back in diode" gets my vote.