Oops – I dropped the calculator and killed the cat

[fragger]

I happened to catch a scene from an old 70s-era cop movie or something on TV as I was passing by the living room earlier, and a character in the background was using what looked like an early calculating device. An old memory got jogged, and always being up for a good net quest I just had to jump online and get to the bottom of it. I came across this:

Sharp Compet CS10A

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If it wasn't this machine, then something very closely related to it was brought to my high school by an early computer geek to give us a demonstration in maths class. This was nine or ten years after the 1964 debut date of the pictured device, so it probably wasn't the same make and model, but I do remember the one at school looking like an old cash register with lots of buttons on it. That one could do the four basic arithmetic operations and had a memory function, but it could also perform more advanced maths operations by way of punched cards. If you wanted to take a square root for example, you fed in the card with a √ printed on it, then entered the required numbers. Judging by the ten vertical rows of digit buttons on the pictured device, I'm guessing that you had to enter the numbers in the proper places on the display yourself as opposed to entering, say, 1,000 by pushing a 1 and a single 0 button three times the way we do today, even though the display shows a twenty digit number. I have no idea what the row of knobs on the front of the thing do, probably related to digit place entering in some way.

Here's a few specs:

The Sharp Compet CS10A was launched in 1964. It cost 535,000 yen (equivalent to US$1,490), weighed 25 Kg (55 pounds), and consumed 90 Watts of power (using 530 transistors and 2,300 diodes).

You'd never lose that in the back of the drawer! You'd be flat out trying to get it into your briefcase though - assuming you could lift it :-\\

[PZ]

 ^+-+

I remember the very first time I saw a calculator - first year of college in the early 1970's - I wanted one bad  :-()

[Dweller_Benthos]

I had a calculator with a similar display, but it was a"normal" input pad, none of that placing the tens number in the right place stuff. But the display numbers were each a vacuum tube - essentially a light bulb - with 10 filaments, each shaped like a number that lit up when needed. It was the oldest one laying around when I started that job and since I was the new guy, I got last pick. Used it for years until it finally gave up.

[Art Blade]

I got my first "pocket" calculator the size of a brick in the early seventies and it had red glowing digits with a tiny bubble-like magnifying glass in front of each digit so you could better read it. You literally had to punch in the numbers, the keys were so hard to press down. But I was really proud back then :)

[fragger]

Lol, D_B ;D :-X They don't make 'em like they used to!

@Art: My first one was similar to yours, it was a birthday present. It was the size and thickness of a solid paperback book and only did the four basic functions and square root, but I still played with it all afternoon :-() Talk about being easily amused...