Just a small selection from my own personal collection. I'm setting up space to better display them, and plan to move more out of storage. I have examples ranging from 1961 to 1990s represented between just those two pics! I actually have well over 100 vintage calculators from the 1960s and on, as well as a couple REALLY ancient pre-electronic era ones, including a Burroughs Manual. My collection spans both desktop and handheld models... And I really need to get them all documented!
I love some of my old Commodore calculators! I have several different models, including my favorites, the S-61 Statistician and the N-60 Navigator, along with a PR100 programmable. There are plenty of others in my collection, but once you see those... nothing else Commodore made in the pocket market even compares! The N-60 and S-61 have 60 keys each (the S-61 has an additional switch). Most of those have a second function! Both use VFD displays. The PR100 is their higher end programable model and used a red LED display.
I have my own Monroe (rebranded Compucorp) and another different model Compucorp. My Monroe 344 Statistician, with dual program banks is fully functional. The other one's broken. Also in storage, so I forgot the model. I've read they were very susceptible to static discharge.
Trust me, you are going to LOVE the Compucorp tear down. If I recall, there are 4 layers of PC boards. It has a Power PCB, a Memory PCB, a Processor PCB, and an I/O PCB. It was very modular, and they used a crazy interconnect to bus the boards together.
The display is a 16 digit Panaplex neon gas display. It glows orange, like a nixie tube, but uses segmented digits. I do believe it displays 10+2 digits, with inline (-) symbols.
The 2ND FUNC key is very unusual on these models. You press it AFTER performing the desired function. The calculator actually calculates for BOTH function's result, and the key toggles which result is displayed, and is used for the next operation. This leads to an unfortunate bug, however, where if you perform a calculation that is valid on one function, but would generate an error on the other, it will error out the calculator. Oddly enough, on at least some models, you could press the RESET key and clear the error, but you could STILL press 2ND FUNC to swap the other (valid) result in!
And yes... This thing is an absolute BEAST! I love it!
Still not as heavy as my SCM Cogito 240SR (The BIG calc with the blue colored CRT) or my Friden EC-132 (in storage)... Of course, this one IS "portable", what with it's
QUAD "D" type batteries!
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And now for some bonus calculator porn...
A shot from my restoration of a Sony SOBAX ICC-600W... striped down! Enjoy!
How about a Russian beauty. She's shy though... This Elektronika 4-71b is only half covered!