When I was in high school my parents bought me an expensive programmable scientific calculator. Using that calculator taught me about assembly-style programming and probably encouraged my interest in engineering. At the May 3, 2024, club meeting I’ll bring that model calculator as well as other computing devices that influenced my life. [Link to Slides]
The second half of my presentation will cover the Curta mechanical calculator that I bought recently. The Curta is really quite astonishing, being able to add, subtract, multiply, divide, and even take square roots!
After demonstrating the Curta, I will leave time for you to play with all of the toys!
Curta Model I from 1950- Sears Pocket Adder “from West Germany”
- Sears Calculator with “Floating Decimal” feature and “Per cent key“
- Radio Shack “Slide Rule” Calculator with “Digitron” Display
- Hewlett-Packard HP-29C Programmable Scientific Calculator with “Continuous Memory“
- Plastic Slide Rule and book about slide rules by Science Fiction Author Isaac Asimov
- Hewlett-Packard HP-41C “Alphanumerical” Programmable Calculator
- Hewlett-Packard HP-16C “Programming Calculator“
- And many others: HP-28S, HP-200LX “Palmtop Computer“, HP-35S, HP-12C, and HP-22
Click image ↓↓↓ for presentation slides.
