Calculators

Welcome to my calculator page !

I definitely have a thing for collecting gadgets! Over the decades I've amassed a modest calculator collection. Until I was about ten, I lusted after a calculator but couldn't seem to get my hands on one. You see, my father frowned upon calculators and refused to buy me one because he said It kept people from learning basic math. He was right of course but what did I know! I just wanted one of those machines! Then one day I discovered that bartering could be an effective way of getting what you want even if you didn't have the money. I traded a kid name Osvald something or other for his Mickey math calculator! My father wasn't exactly happy but he didn't make me trade it back and so I was in business! Later I would go through a series of calculators including a TI SR 40, some kind of Sharp, an HP 67 and an HP 41CX. Then came all the rest!

As with the cameras, a calculator gets into the collection because I like it for some reason or other and not because it's somehow rare or valuable. Because the calculator industry is so utilitarian, the best or most significant pieces tend to be the most plentiful and therefore cheap! This means I can have fun on a budget! I'm not a true math nut and I don't fix anything on these except for the most rudimentary issues. So I can't really call myself a true calculator collector. Still, I like my worthy little calculators enough to show them off here. I won't be going in to details on any of the models except maybe for a brief explanation of why I like each one. There are plenty of calculator sites on the net today and taken together, they provide enormously detailed info on virtually every calculator ever made. Please click on the linked terms for further info from "real" calculator sites. Also, I'll be adding calculator links at the bottom. Anyways, it turns out that product photography is a little trickier than I thought. Please ignore the dust on the imager and on the calculators!

So then, without further delay here they are

! ! ! THE JAVIER COLLECTION ! ! !

I'll have to confess that I am an untreated, chronic HP nut. and most of my calculators are HPs. Even as young as 12 or so, Hewlett Packard was by far my favourite company. Believe it or not, my love of HP began with the calculators. I turned on to RPN almost immediately when my dad brought home an HP65 and never looked back. Since HP was one of the few companies making RPN calculators I stuck with them. Today I have trouble using an algebraic calculator for more than a few keystrokes and wouldn't even consider using one that wasn't RPN. But back to the subject at hand. This is the HP 35. It came out around 1972 and was HP's first handheld calculator. It used the RPN logic found on their desktop models. RPN stands for Reverse Polish Notation. It requires that you input numbers and operands a little differently than you would with a normal algebraic calculator but it allows you to perform long calculations without having to open or close parenthesis or store intermediate values. My 35 is a late version. In addition to being a very powerful calculator for its day, the 35 was a beautifully styled and serious looking machine. It's one of the few calculators from its era that can still fit in comfortably on a desk next to a computer. In fact, it may fit in even more comfortably than, any modern calculator because it has absolutely no computer pretensions!

Here's the HP 41CX. I bought this one from 47th Street Photo around 1985 or so. I wasn't too happy with it in the beginning because I was very much set in my HP 65/67 ways. With the 41 series HP had taken what many people including me felt, was the world's finest calculator and turned it into the world's worst computer. I continued to feel that way for a long time until I got used to it. The 41 could be programmed much like the 67 but in addition it could handle alpha characters and that meant programs could be named and assigned to specific keys. It was also expandable via all sorts of plug in modules. Eventually the 41CX became my favourite user HP. I still use it as my standard calculator and can't see a reason to replace it with anything else. I would never go back to the 67 either! An excellent HP 41 emulator is available. HERE

Here's the HP 48GX. It was the successor to the 48SX and had some extra capabilities. This is my father's GX, which he used until he retired. I had an SX for a few months but it was stolen in 1994. I never did get used to the 48 series. There was certainly a place for them in someone's field kit but notebooks and pc-like handhelds can do everything the 48 can. I just don't see the purpose to these except as student calculators and even then only under certain circumstances. It is however a wonderfully well built calculator/computer and like just about everything HP has ever made, it's well thought out and fully baked.

This HP 67 was my first HP calculator. I bought it rather late around 1979 when the 41 series had already replaced the 67 as HP's premier calculator. The 67 was based around the 65 chassis and like the 65, had a built in magnetic card reader. It was essentially a modernized and more capable version of the 65. It's magnetic cards could be read by the newer 41 series if you had the card reader accessory. I spent a lot of time with my old 67. It's one of the few calculators I ever bought new. I learned keystroke programming on my dad's 65 but I got proficient on this one.

Here's a Texas Instruments TI 59. It was the successor to TI's SR 52. It was a tough, well made machine designed for scientific and engineering use. In terms of sophistication it stood somewhere in between the HP 67 and the 41. It had a built-in card reader and plug-in softeware module capability. It could also be docked to a print station. That's about all I can say about because I have never used it much. It's an algebraic calculator and I'm not going to bother with it. Still, it was the calculator of choice for a lot of scientific and engineering sorts who needed the programmability and the modules.

Here;'s the HP 12 C platinum edition. It's a spin off of the old 12C financial calculator and it's the only one of the 10c series still in production. This is one lovely little calculator but I don't use it much at all because I know nothing about finance and I don't care. I bought it for the novelty value.

This is a Soviet built Elektronika MK 52 calculator. It was the best of the soviet RPN calculators and is unique in that it used an EEPROM to store programs. I've only had it for a few days and I'm still trying to ort out the Russian keys So far I've got most of the label keys figured out but I keep forgetting what theuy mean. The MK 52 was used on MIR as a back up computer for docking procedures. This is one mean looking calculator. I love the slide rule form factor!

The HP 15C has developed a cult following among HP calculator fans. There's even one guy on the web who has been campaigning for years to have HP reintroduce the 15C. Of course that would never happen since just tooling up for a 15C would cost millions but they could make a scientific equivalent to the 12 mainstay and call it a 15c mk2. I can understand why so many people might like it. The 15C has a feature set that most closely matches that of the 67 and the 41. It has A through E label keys to soothe the 67 fans and it has the continuous memory of the 41. The 15C is indeed a very convenient and desirable little calculator. If it had been equipped with an IR port or some way of talking to the world it would be everyone's must have HP. Anyway, this is one of the HPs that I am always finding excuses to use It's easily one of my favourite calculators.

Here's a Sperry Model 665. It's an early basic handheld that makes a nice piece in any collection. It works but I have never used it for anything. I bought it because it was made by a legendary company.

This is a 38G graphing student calculator. This was a student calculator from the start. It has no professional pretensions. It's a well made calculator but it's algebraic and I'm not going to spend much time on it. I have to say that it's probably the best built student calculator I've ever seen!

Here's the Texas Instruments Datamath 2500. This is actually a B model. The Datamath was TI's first pocket calculator, made around the same time as the HP 35. Unlike the 35, the Datamath is an absolutely and unashamedly basic calculator without anything but the four basic arithemetic functions. Of course that's to be expected since it was intended for a far different customer. One thing is certain. If looks could kill the Datamath would be a lethal weapon. In my opinion the Datamath is one of the best styled calculators in history. I'm sure it must have won some sort of design award. It just looks like it came from a famous design studio! A Datamath 2500 emulator is available HERE.

An old friend of mine had one of these HP28 folding calculators. I had my "old fashioned" 41CX at the time and lusted after his 28S. I finally got one off Ebay a couple of years ago and still haven't gotten around to figuring it out.

I was working at a summer job around 1985 and someone gave me this one. The wear pattern surrounding the on/off key is typical of instruments with silk screened numbering on metal plates. Fortunately, no one does this anymore.

This was my father's first calculator. He bought it in the mid s70s, years after most other people did. Until then he had always used the office calculator. He used it for about 5 years before moving up to an even older HP 65. This TI doesn't work right now because I took it apart and broke it years ago. But I'll be getting a few parts together and fixing it up soon. Notice that like a lot of the calculators of the day, it had the silver electroformed trim that tended to wear out and look ugly. Too bad. Fortunately all of that can be photo shopped out!

Here's the Elektronika Mk 61. It's functionally similar to the Mk 52 but in a conventional calculator format and it doesn't have the EEPROM for power-off storage. I don't use it much but like the 52, the 61 was known to be a very capable calculator. The only real drawback to this one as well as the 52 is that both have these funny tap keys rather than the more traditional push keys or click push keys found on all other calculator. BTW: Note the protective tape on the readout screen. This baby is new!

Here's the Omron 800. This was one of the transitional models that appeared for a few years in the late 60s and early seventies It filled the gap between the old discrete/nixie tabletop models and the pocket calculators that dominated from the early seventies onwards. The Japanese built Omron 800 was a basic minitable top model. It was powered by AC and had no provision for battery power.

Here's a Mickey Math calculator just like the one I had when I was a kid. It's actually an Alco model 18, made for Alco by Omron. Even then there were few real manufacturers of anything. Most were relabelers or resellers. Anyway this was my first calculator and even though I am not a nostalgist, I couldn't pass it up for like 5 bucks on Ebay. Who sez collecting the cool stuff has to be expensive. The Mickey math has a six digit display and the basic arithmetic functions. It's a late enough calculator that it has a floating decimal point and a single equals key. Most of the inside is filled with air. The caklculator proper is about the size of the keypad and display.