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...