This has officially become a relic....

Sac Arrow

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Snorting his way across the USA
I pulled this out of my desk. The batteries are dead. There are no batteries for it in the supply room. I had to aks myself the question. "Why bother?"

The truth of the matter is I haven't used it in months. No, more like a year. Maybe even two or three. I forgot the last time I used it. I can't:

-Take pictures with it
-Text message someone with it
-Whore it up on the POA or Facebook with it
-Get the weather with it
-Get a pixel display of my flight route with it (although, I could conceivably program it with some simple nav calcs if I wanted to spend the time)
-Face time with it
-Take pictures with it
-Yada yada yada.

I've got an RPN calculator program on my desktop that is easier to use, and an RPN calculator on my Iphone as well, if I need a portable calculator (I hate using standard calculators, I'm spoiled.) Plus a lot of the long calculations I would have done on it when I got it, I'd do in an Excel spreadsheet these days anyway.

Oh well.
 

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I used to have an 11C and still have a 41CV...maybe someday it'll be worth something as an antique?
 
Clark1961 said:
I used to have an 11C and still have a 41C...maybe someday it'll be worth something as an antique?
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You know, I just Googled and I'm seeing 42s calculators going on Ebay for as much as $450! WTF?? But yes, I think so.
 
I have a 16C. I should see what it's worth. It still worked the last time I tried it. Hmm.
 
Hah! I've got the business version of that (17BII). Just used it 5 minutes ago.
 
It's not like arithmetic has changed much in the last couple of years...
 
I think I still have the TI programmer's around here. I can probably count on one hand the actual number of times I used it.
Like new. Best offer!!!
 
I have a 15C that I use nearly daily, and I've owned it since 1985. Third set of batteries, I love the thing.
 
Bill Jennings said:
I have a 15C that I use nearly daily, and I've owned it since 1985. Third set of batteries, I love the thing.
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Ditto - though some of the memory registers have failed, it is still what I use for doing simple calculations. I think I've only replaced the batteries once.
 
Clark1961 said:
I used to have an 11C and still have a 41CV...maybe someday it'll be worth something as an antique?
Click to expand...

I still use my 41CV. Every decade or so I have to make a Radio Shack run for a new set of N cells. :D
 
Sac Arrow said:
I can't:

-Take pictures with it
-Text message someone with it
-Whore it up on the POA or Facebook with it
-Get the weather with it
-Get a pixel display of my flight route with it (although, I could conceivably program it with some simple nav calcs if I wanted to spend the time)
-Face time with it
-Take pictures with it
-Yada yada yada.
Click to expand...

But you can spell BOOBS!!! :D
 
Sac Arrow said:
I pulled this out of my desk. The batteries are dead. There are no batteries for it in the supply room. I had to aks myself the question. "Why bother?"

The truth of the matter is I haven't used it in months. No, more like a year. Maybe even two or three. I forgot the last time I used it. I can't:

-Take pictures with it
-Text message someone with it
-Whore it up on the POA or Facebook with it
-Get the weather with it
-Get a pixel display of my flight route with it (although, I could conceivably program it with some simple nav calcs if I wanted to spend the time)
-Face time with it
-Take pictures with it
-Yada yada yada.

I've got an RPN calculator program on my desktop that is easier to use, and an RPN calculator on my Iphone as well, if I need a portable calculator (I hate using standard calculators, I'm spoiled.) Plus a lot of the long calculations I would have done on it when I got it, I'd do in an Excel spreadsheet these days anyway.

Oh well.
Click to expand...

This seems so familiar.

I keep one in my flight bag. Never know if the iPhone dies or whatever.
 
I've still got'm all
First TI
Apple integer machine with CP/M chip added
First Palm Pilot and all the way to Palm Z33
The Newton! (Still works)
First 88 with Five Star DOS
Wrist watch calculator -- can't find it but its somewhere.
 
guardrail said:
But you can spell BOOBS!!! :D
Click to expand...

Yeah but with the iPhone you can do Google and look at them! With donkeys too!

David7700 said:
This seems so familiar.

I keep one in my flight bag. Never know if the iPhone dies or whatever.
Click to expand...

It was either pick one or the other, or post it in both places.
 
That is a sweeeeeet calculator, I love RPN, saved me so much time during those exams. You should be able to find batteries for it.
 
I am definitely a relic, but I thought we were talking about calculators
 
a couple or three years ago I bought 2 each $1 solar powered calculators at walmart, anything more complicated uses a spreadsheet

I just tried the 41CV and it still works...I probably used it last about 12 years ago
 
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I keep my 41CX in my desk at work, and still use it regularly. Some of my coworkers laugh, but it cost two months' rent & food when I was in college. Batteries seem to last 6-8 years.

There are some good (and not so good) RPN apps out there. Got 'em on my iPad and both Samsungs (tablet & phone). Ain't no other way to calculate! I can generally have the answer faster than Excel can open.
 
The HP 42s is an excellent calculator. I have two of them.
It uses 357 batteries, which you get at the drug store, etc.
 
Hank S said:
I can generally have the answer faster than Excel can open.
Click to expand...

You close Excel??? I've always got a spreadsheet available somewheres around here....using open office these days but samey-same for calcs.
 
I live on Excel at work, but when I clean up, save and close files, sometimes Excel closes. Word, too, but never Outlook . . . < sigh >
 
Sam D said:
Oh man! My kids probably think so.

Now get off my lawn!!!
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Maybe a year ago, I was at my accountants office. He still had one of those calculators with a heat transfer printer on his desk. Of course, all the returns are done on a software, but to run through some 'what if' scenarios, he used that rattling desk calculator. I asked him, he said he grew up on those things and needs the auditory and tactile feedback of the strip printer to keep the 'flow' he is used to.
 
A Little History


I made it thru High School and got into College with my Post Versalog.....but when I got back from 'Nam, I couldn't find it in the mess that was left of my stuff.

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Mason said:
A Little History


I made it thru High School and got into College with my Post Versalog.....but when I got back from 'Nam, I couldn't find it in the mess that was left of my stuff.

attachment.php
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Very nice. A Post slide rule. With the bamboo slides I believe. I actually learned how to use one in Jr. High. By high school calculators had taken over but, hey! I like oddball skills. They were the go-to device for a couple of generations of engineers who built some ver cool stuff with them. (P-51 anyone?)

John
 
Hank S said:
I keep my 41CX in my desk at work, and still use it regularly. Some of my coworkers laugh, but it cost two months' rent & food when I was in college. Batteries seem to last 6-8 years.

There are some good (and not so good) RPN apps out there. Got 'em on my iPad and both Samsungs (tablet & phone). Ain't no other way to calculate! I can generally have the answer faster than Excel can open.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree. I have a free cheesy RPN app on my Iphone but it works well enough, and it's still ten times better (ease of use, not quality of interface) than the native calculator app.

oilburner said:
The HP 42s is an excellent calculator. I have two of them.
It uses 357 batteries, which you get at the drug store, etc.
Click to expand...

The batteries are easy enough to get, I know. It's just... a matter of making run to the drug story and buying the batteries. I bought (well, more accurately my company bought for me) that calculator as just a general use number cruncher for grad school. I had a 28s as my first HP calculator.
 
The DAY I graduated from the Industrial Engineering School at the UW, Hewlett Packard introduced the HP-35.

By the time I bought one it was a HP-45.

Two years ago I sold a BNIB HP-41CX for $800 on eBay. Someone in France bought it.
 
jsstevens said:
Very nice. A Post slide rule. With the bamboo slides I believe. I actually learned how to use one in Jr. High. By high school calculators had taken over but, hey! I like oddball skills. They were the go-to device for a couple of generations of engineers who built some ver cool stuff with them. (P-51 anyone?)

John
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SR-71 anybody?
 
Henning said:
SR-71 anybody?
Click to expand...

I had an SR-51A. I worked summer between Junior and Senior year (HS) and bought that and a bicycle. My sister replaced her Post slide rule with an SR-50 between freshman and sophomore years at CalTech.

John
 
I think Henning meant that the SR 71 airplane was designed by slide rule. Which I'm sure was largely true, although they did have digital mainframe computers by 1960, which was about the time the development for it would have begun.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I think Henning meant that the SR 71 airplane was designed by slide rule. Which I'm sure was largely true, although they did have digital mainframe computers by 1960, which was about the time the development for it would have begun.
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IIRC the concept was begun in the mid 50s with the first engine run in 57 and first flight of the A-12 in 62. They beat the X-15 to hypersonic.
 
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