Smallest Battery-Powered Calculator in 1970: Dictaphone 1680
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- Taking a look at the Sanyo ICC-82D, aka the Dictaphone 1680. The smallest portable electronic calculator with built-in display on the market in 1970! And one of the first hand-holdable battery powered calculators, period. It wasn't cheap either, costing $495 in - roughly $3500 with inflation!
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#LGR #retro #calculator
Update! Check this out: ua-cam.com/video/C-o6aznNuGo/v-deo.html
With the generous help of Curious Marc and crew this lovely calculator now lives again. They also dove into how the General Instrument chipset works!Delightful!
It was a treat to work on such a beautiful calculator. Thanks for entrusting it to us!
Amazing, will have a watch
send it to mr calrsons labs to reveiw
In the 70s my mom did accounting with a big noisy heavy mechanical adding machine. She didn't trust electronic calculators because they were "too small".
Size queen
I work in accounting and mechanical adding machines are still standard issue for our desks everywhere I've worked. In fact, as recently as 2019 I was responsible for a process where one had to "run a tape" (ie. do addition while printing it to the paper strip), and ensure the grand total matched what was in the folder.
Around the same time my Father brought home a mechanical calculator because they had replaced the ones where he worked with Texas Instruments electronic ones. However he said that each TI pocket calculator had been screwed onto a large (breadboard sized) piece of wood because they didn't trust that the employees wouldn't stick them in their pockets and walk off with them !
@@MrDuncl Kinda reminds me of how Commodore made the Educator 64 (a C64 in a PET-style case -- including the built-in CRT monitor) after schools refused to buy C64s that were small enough to slip into a student's backpack.
@@HelloWorld-jt9yp 💀💀💀
11:59 Those "burn marks" I expect are actually from the casing of the wires reacting with the plastic over time. They do look like burn marks but you can see that the wires have been in close contact with the plastic and so I think they're the result of a chemical reaction between the two. Great video as always!
I think so, too. Just like old cables can leave marks in styrofoam packaging.
Yes, precisely what it is.
This is super common, I see it all the time with stuff I repair
The guts of this calculator look like the inspiration for every TV show bomb from 1970-1990.
Don't cut the red wire!
Coolest thing is that the more the battery wears out the closest to reality the representation becomes
That’s because you could make a bomb out of one of these. It’s merely a a timer for an actuator.
The 'burn' marks on the battery by the wires are the elastomer used in the wires leaching into the plastic. You see this on vintage computers that people have wrapped the power cords around.
This is why I stopped wrapping cables around keyboards, game controllers, etc.
Most typical examples, PVC damaged by contact with (unexpanded) polystyrene {you guys call it styrofoam) and ABS damaged by contact with PVC.
8-bit guy had a few Commodore 1541 drives that had this type of cable damage.
The display tubes are panaplex, work exactly like nixies but instead of digit shaped cathodes they are in a 7 segment arrangement. Pretty much that's their only similarity to VFDs as they do have a gas fill (I believe neon and maybe argon) to facilitate plasmic discharge unlike VFDs which operate under a vacuum and light up due to thermionic emission striking phosphors.
As for the missing F and G segments on the tubes, since they are all out this suggests the tubes are driven multiplexed. I'd start by looking for cold solder joints leading up to the tubes but it's most likely the open collector cathode drive high voltage transistors for those segments have died and need to be replaced.
I had arrived at the multiplex part as well, but I wasn't too sure where to go from there. I've made my own devices with 7 segment displays before, so I'm very aware of multiplexing them. But I use LED displays and ATmega and ESP chips which don't usually need transistors. I hope Clint reads your comment, because failing transistors, especially with your explanation of how these display tubes work, makes perfect sense.
The "Oooh, arts and crafts" line caught me offguard. LOL
Love seeing the insides of these older machines, even if it's just a calculator.
I’ve seen problems on early segment displays like this before, and it’s quite easy to fix! Each segment is usually driven by a general purpose transistor, which can occasionally fail and take out the same segment in every digit. (I glimpsed a couple of the transistors in the video, they look like Mitsubishi ones)
If you can probe around and find which transistor drives those particular segments, fixing the display should be as simple as replacing it.
Yes!!!
The guy is clueless, he's definitely not qualify to fix it, probably no degree in EE or stuff like that, he could've easily taken it someone that knows how to fix it though.
@@avcomth well yeah he is just a person making yt videos not some electrical engineer
@@max_uaminecraft1827 But at times and in many of his vids, he attemped to convey that he's some hotshot knowledgeable engineer of some sort.
@@avcomth Has he? I've never seen that. He fixes what he knows he can fix. He knows when he's out of his depth as in this situation. When would a 'hotshot' admit they don't know what they're doing?
How about Ron at Joe's Classic Videogames? He's always fixing 7 segment displays on vintage pinball machines from a similar era. He might be able to give you some clues as to what the problem is.
also I think they are close to each other...
Great channel, love his stuff.
@@awagentx I believe he got his Missile Command arcade cabinet from them. I'm a bit fan of their channel (as well as LGR of course).
I don't think they ever used these displays. They went right from flip-clock style to LED style. They were probably too delicate and expensive. This tiny little thing cost as much as a pinball machine back then.
It's just funny to me to think I was alive when this thing was made. It really drives home how much ICs advanced in 50 years. (another example is TVs. Take apart a mid 60s color set and mid 70s color set. Truly amazing) But really, in 5 years. This style of calculator was VERY short lived. Just a few months ago I saw a scientific calculator in a dollar store!!! It had features my college calculator that cost over 100 dollars 30 years ago had.
@@gameweiner8710
What the heck are you talking about?
I have a weird memory of the late 80's when companies were attaching "free" unrelated stuff to their products. My parents brought home a box of laundry detergent with a solar-powered calculator glued to the lid. 10-year-old me thought it was so cool. My dad just sighed and told me about the first time he was able to replace his slide-rule with a four-function calculator that he paid over $100 for.
Edit: He went to engineering school in the early-mid 60's, but not sure when that purchase was, exactly.
A $100 calculator is outrageous (especially in the 70's and 80's), but not having to use a slide rule anymore? That's priceless.
@@nonameronin1 Yeah, that seemed high. My first calculator was from 1976, when my math class phased them in. A standard TI coast $42 at the local Sun Electronics, so my mom bought it. Of course in math class it was only allowed to confirm your answers....
@@nonameronin1 Canadian or Austalian dollars perhaps
Maybe this is an excellent excuse to do a collab with the master restorer on vintage computers, CuriousMarc.I'm sure his electronics group can fix the Calculator, but also it would be great to see you two chat about his collection and general computer stuff.
CuriousMarc and his friends are damn wizards.
This would be amazing.
I just saw his video, great collab!
If you asked me, I'd say I'm not particularly interested in old tech from back in the day. However, LGR's obvious passion and enthusiasm for his hobby has kept me watching his content for years. Doesn't hurt that he's got a super soothing voice that's perfect for just throwing on a playlist and going to bed with. I may not know a lot about this stuff, but I could hear LGR talk about it for hours easy. I don't even remember exactly how I stumbled onto the channel years ago, but I've been a fan ever since. There's just something about listening to a person genuinely excited about their hobby and sharing it with you that's quite appealing to me.
I remember seeing this cutie in a vintage market awhile ago, it’s so dopey I love it
You could ask CuriousMarc if he can help you, he's an incredibly good electronics technician
I was just about to post the same thing.
I was thinking Dave from EEVblog.
Indeed. It would be an awesome collab!
CuriousMarc is my choice too. If he can get the Apollo space electronics from the same era going, this will be easy for him (and his team) !
Agreed! Marc would be all over it
The amount of love this guy has for old technology is so heartwarming. If anyone should have this kinda stuff in their hands, there is no one better than the LGR
I am not going to lie that calculator is very stylish. I would totally use that today.
I liked those lil printer ones- fascinating
Stylish?!?! 70s style= no style
@@janedoe3043 Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.
@@BrotherRoga Frankly, not the most popular one.
Absolutely! I would too
6:41 I agree, and I'd recommend people take a look inside old electric organs. Many of their chips can look similar and you could very easily throw together a prop from those parts without having to destroy a calculator. it's a shame, but electric organs are just too big to keep most times. I've had to destroy about 10 of them in my life, but the parts are so good. It really wouldn't be hard to make a fake replica from old electronics instead of destroying a complete calculator.
And there are people out there making look-a-like boards with working VFDs.
@@sunnasmilieu Somebody collects anything and everything.
Destroy one mega rare thing to fix another? That's HORRIBLE
Classic Organs are as precious as this calculator if not more. Utter pieces of art.
I don't think the people saying this realize that the parts are just as rare and wanted by the cosplayers.
How is it any different from someone telling you to just make a replica calculator with modern parts? The reason they use these calculators is they are the exact parts that were a part of the original costume. A movie I might remind people was a huge part of people's childhoods.
Collecting these calculators to keep as a rare thing to sit on a shelf among other rare things has no greater value than using the parts to make an authentic cosplay item. Both are passion fueled preservation of a product of the past.
Curious Marc might have an idea. Him and his restoration guys are damn near gods of old electronics
I would love to see that! A collaboration between some of my favorite channels! :D
Yes, him might have an idea.
Yes, definitely! If CuriousMarc and his team can't get this nice calculator back to a nice and fully functional calculator again, no one can. A colab would be really awesome
and it happened
@@legokill1019 and turned out fantastic.
[Smooth jazz fades out smoothly] I do enjoy your subtitles
I like how you can even see that the traces were laid by hand. Such wow.
I would say you need a schematic. It's probably something in that line of capacitors or transistors under the battery. If you had the schematic, you could check voltage points to trace the issue.
Looks like a tricorder from Star Trek TOS!
Classic 23rd century design
The marks on the battery are from a chemical reaction between the plastic and the rubber of the wires. This happens a lot with old microcomputers that were stored with their cables wrapped around.
8:24 Love those gold legged chips. When I took my Yamaha DX7 apart to fit an expansion board I saw it used chips a bit like that. No expense spared.
I looked it up and you were right, they look awesome!
Check out pictures of the Yamaha GS1 circuit board. That really was no expense spared. Not only did it have dozens of those ceramic ICs, the board was the shape of a baby grand Piano !!!
I'm sure Adrian (Adrian's Digital Basement) would have an oscilloscope to check out what the chips etc are doing and see if it can be fixed :D. Collab? :P.
Fran (franlab) would be more at home with faultfinding those old display tubes and IC:s
I came here to say this - I think you need a rescue collab with someone like ADB.
Came here to say the same thing. Or Fran.
Very cool to see what's inside in old calculator like this, never seen this stuff before :)
Put this in perspective, this calculator was made two years after the first moon landing
There was never a moon landing.
I came from one year after the first moon landing.
This is Curiousmarc and his friends electronics territory. Those guys are AWESOME fixing really old and complex systems.
As a calculator person, this one is delightful.
I have recently been using a Casio fx-83WA from 1996ish. It's pretty fun.
I still own the Casio fx-4000P I bought in 1991 and it still works perfectly!
I got my Casio scientific calculator when I started grade 10 in 1991. Still works like a charm; only replaced the batteries once. I think it cost $20. Man, I figured out how to use EVERY feature... made stats way easier when I could input all the numbers and let *it* calculate the mean and the SD!
I love telling my high school physics students that the calculator I used to get my B.Sc. is less powerful than one I bought at Dollar Tree for $1.25.
A really fascinating video! Nice vintage calculator and great view of the internals. I enjoyed watching this vintage tech!
I would certainly like to see a follow up on calculators of the era. I've be curious to see if one I grew up with (and have no real memory of that would help me describe it currently) might just show up. I played with it in the 80's, but I suspect it went back to the 70's.
Nice old beast, those displays are a lot closer to Nixie tubes than a VFD. VFD's have a heater filament, where these don't, they are (as are nixie's) kind of a glorified neon bulb.
If you are lucky the lost segment could be one of those transistors & associated caps etc, you'll probably need a scope to see the multiplex in action.
Looking back at it, the row of 'resistors' under the lower bank of transistors, the one too the left is off at an odd angle - have a look, has it pulled free?
I think Ben Heck did a repair video on something that had a similar problem with the display, but he basically said that it was just because it was an old part. I don't think he tried to fix the display itself cuz he didn't have the tools
I wouldn't like to comment on Ben Heck's abilities, I'm not qualified to judge but I find he tends to be rather destructive in his "fixes." He doesn't preserve and restore so much as rip out and replace. He's not the guy I would entrust vintage electronics to.
@@complexacious Ben is extremely capable for being self-educated but let's just say he has a more "practical" approach and isn't that interested in preserving.
But as somebody else commented, CuriousMarc would be a better place to get it done, anyway.
I was thinking as well about Ben Heck! I really think he can fix this! He is the calculator wizard.
Those are 7 segment Nixie tubes like Panaplex (even more rare than regular nixie tubes). It looks like you're missing "F" segment to all digits, so either a contact to F's is broken or the BCD to 7 segment decoder is broken or has bad joint. Those tubes are all in parallel, the grids are separate, the control is dynamic multiplex. Search the problem in "F" connection or see if some of the tubes is shorted on F segment to grid, in some cases, each segment can receive its supply trough a resistor (check it) so 8 of them needed for each row of the 7 segments and dots, there also could be a transistor driver switching them, check all those points and elements on the "F" segments path up to the IC (integrated circuit). On the backside of each tube you can see how the connections are made and trace where they are going out of the tube. The problem should be easy to troubleshoot.
This PCB and ICs... 💖💖💖
No wonder it cost that much back in the day!
Read in the Sanyo ICC-82D manual that the "E" is "Error (over flow lamp)". If I'm not mistaken, those are filament bulbs. The gas inside may have leaked causing them to no longer function.
I suspect the missing segments in the display is duff driver transistors. Those TO106 round transistors can often be problematic in old radios etc,. Apparently they haven't aged very well. A suitable replacement would be something like MPSA42 or MPSA92 high voltage switching transistors, depending if they're NPN or PNP.
Those came into my mind immidiately, too. And they are still readily available for just a few cents. I think it is multiplexed, so it likely uses PNP for the anodes and NPN for the cathodes.
I remember love how you really seamlessly your videos..... The music, the intro..... I.... Whoops. There goes that. 😊
I'm a calculator colector TI fan boy what you have here even in its current functional status is an amazing piece of history the chips look amazing and the tubes too, yes nixie calculators are the joy of every collector but I also enjoy my panaplex display, vfd and led too, nice find !
My suggestion would be to reach out to either CuriousMarc or Mr. Carlson's Lab. Both do a ton of vintage electronic repairs, and i guess it would be a great opportunity to do a colab?
Thanks for making another calculator video! It's been too long since your last one. Lots of us use calculators every day at work (accounts, here), so the more retro attention they receive, the better IMO
Nice,it all adds up to LGR ,great channel
My father worked for Bowmar who made some early calculators. I still have several prototypes he brought home. Because of a TI lawsuit they decided to exit that market and concentrate on government contracts though.
If it wasn't for TI we might not have had Commodore Computers. Commodore were selling calculators made using TI chips until TI started undercutting them charging the same for the ICs as TI made calculators. Jack Tramiel bought MOS who developed the 6502 and got his revenge by driving TI out of the home computer business.
Curious Marc sent me. Glad it's working.
Calculators are so fascinating, i dont know why,but its so cool.The VFD displays ?
This Sanyo is dope !!!
When I was a kid, my dad cleaned out an office and brought me home a sharp calculator from about that same time and it had that theme display in it
Kind of like when everyone destroyed the graflex camera parts for lightsabers
50 years... Very pretty. Looking at that sponge disintegrating made me think that in a few hundred thousand years future explorers and historians won't even know they should be looking for transistors within a piece of shiny silicon they would have found in a pile of golden little pins.
The screen angrily alternates between C and J. Apparently, it expects you to follow the train. 😅
Ahh shit. Here we go again.
That battery meter looks just like the VU meter on my first Wards Airline cassette recorder.
The start Price for the version with Nixie Display Starts at 290€ fully working and with charger.
Thank you for that video.
☺🍀
Between this channel, Matt’s tech moan and 8 bit guy.. I’ve been watching for years.. many years. However each night for the last month before bed I’ve been binge watching all 3. lol.
Try Mr. Carlson's Lab, He mostly does old radios and stuff... He is less destructive and he has above all the touch and respect for old electronics... Try him and see I'm not sure about calculators but he is very good choice.. (in my opinion)… I was also looking for a green display calculator which I used when I was much younger but I cannot seem to find them … they continue to evade me... Hope you fix the calculator.. it's not very often you find tech that is old and 100%... Cheers! remember Mr. Carlson's Lab...
I had 80's polish Elwro calculator with similar VFD tube display but light green. And it was powered from the wall socket. Even in the 80's these calculators were outdated, but they were pretty reliable and the display had that pleasant glow. When thin Citizen calculators appeared Elwros became obsolete.
That calculator is in such good cosmetic shape. Too bad it isn't a nixie tube display though.
I was hoping Clint would have something with a DSM LCD, but the age of the calculator made it too early for that. That was the coolest '70s display tech imo; boiling a liquid crystal is the most metal way to produce an image.
1:12 "In 1969, nice", he's one of us
This looks like a job for Adrian's Digital Basement.
I think the gas discharge tubes are more like Nixie tubes, basically each segment is a tiny neon indicator. There's no vacuum in them, just a low-pressure gas. Once the striking voltage is reached between the electrodes, current will flow through the gas, creating a plasma which excites the gas to glow the distinctive orange colour (although different gas mixtures can be used to create different coloured gas discharge glows).
Nixies are a specialised kind of GDT, where there's a cathode grid across the front of the tube and multiple anodes stacked on top of each other, one for each number (or character) in the tube.
That's very different from a VFD, which work more like vacuum tubes. They use a hot cathode which boils off electrons that fly through the vacuum tube to hit the anode. The anode is coated with a phosphor, which glows when struck by the electrons. The cathode is negatively charged, and there's a control grid between the cathode and the anode that's positively charged. Electrons are accelerated from the cathode, through the control grid to the positively charged anode, which glows. If the anode is negatively charged, it doesn't glow.
Because GDTs need to strike across an inert gas, their working voltages are much higher than VFDs, typically 160-320V (depending on segment size). That means this kind of low-voltage device requires a circuit to generate the high voltage required to run the tubes, and high voltage transistors to switch on the segments. VFDs operate at much lower voltages, typically up to 24V at the high end, which is one reason they quickly overtook GDTs as the preferred display technology from the late 70s all the way through to the 90s when LCDs started to take over.
Fran Blanche has a good video explaining the difference, "Know Your Displays - Nixie vs. VFD Tubes".
Here's the link to Fran's video (if such links are allowed through the spam filter): ua-cam.com/video/Z_Ga15np_Lk/v-deo.html
I love these kind of videos. Keep it up lgr !!!!!!!
Sounds like a good collaboration opportunity with Adrian's Digital Basement.
I love it! That one hit a chord in me - as a kid I used to buy all sorts of calculators on flea markets, always having my pearents worrying that I get an electric shock at some point when powering on one of them xD
Hi Clint...what a lovely piece of history you got. I can only recommend another youtuber that I watch a lot messing around with old computers from the 60s and 70s. Try to contact Curious Marc from the computer museum in California. His whole team play around with old technology a lot. They even resuscitate one of the original Apollo 11 (Moon Landing) computers from the 60s. Thanks for keeping posting good content. Greetings Criss
$495! To put this into context, by late 70s I heard my parents say, "Who can afford a $300 per month mortgage?"
So cool. I still have my father's Hitachi KK 181B, circa 1973. So similar to this one: rechargeable battery, charge meter, VFD display, reed switches, even the visor. The battery and meter are long gone, but the rest still worked last time I plugged it in.
Those old 1970s calculators are like early microcomputers back then, even though now they’re so redundant when you can have a very sleek and tiny device that can do calculations nowadays!
A Vintage Classic~From And Absolutely Splendid Year Of MCMLXXI...
Could the three non-functional tubes be creating an open circuit and cause the functioning tubes to have incomplete displays? (Forgive me if this is a stupid theory!)
I doubt that as the equals command isn’t doing it’s job, but is actually responding. That might be an issue too but there’s definitely a problem with the logic.
@@ParallelSyntax True. Would chip failure affect the tubes powering on or displaying properly when global cleared? I feel like that’s more a power issue and they’d just display a static “8” if they were able to receive power but not commands.
No they wouldn't. Those tubes are fed by 7 wires that are either 0 or 1, or to be more precise that have current or don't. It's like having 7 led's from which one doesn't work. The principle is the same as we use nowadays 7 segment displays, just back in the days they didn't have that technology. They used tubes. Each segment have it's own positive wire and the same ground. I think the capacitors are dead.
The lid coming loose while talking about how it's not that intigrated is some great unintentional comedy. Great stuff.
Old calculators are fascinating. Some, pretty stylish too, and this one, I'd use in a cinch.
Back to a time when you leased your telephone and your calculator. 😉
Don't most people still lease their (mobile) Telephones, although I'll admit you get to keep them after two years of excessive monthly payments.
@@MrDuncl You know, I didn't think of that but you're right. ;)
TIP: There's only one person i would send my stuff to, and that's the Apollo hardware repairman himself. The one, the only ... curiousmarc. He'd fix this in his sleep. :)
pretty much everyone else on youtube is a hack besides marc and the gang. I cringe at some of the recommendations others are giving.
@@RickBaconsAdventures like?
@@VidweII well it wouldn't be kind to call anyone out specifically.
@@RickBaconsAdventures Marc and his friends are the real deal. There's also (channel name) Mr Carlson's Lab. As far as i'm concerned when it comes to his field and persona, he's also the peak of his class, but he's more into radio tubes, rather than computers.
@@RickBaconsAdventures fair enough.
I'm lucky to have a mint condition device, albeit with renewed NiMH batt pack. Minimal contact cleaning got all digits (panaplex type) working again. Even got the instructions and original cleaning cloth. Lovely device! Great video!
Man, I hate when people destroy stuff like this to make props. The same thing happened with the C96 Mauser after Star Wars came out with people destroying them to make blasters.
When they first used it for making a prop the device is still on the market or found in a thrift shop stuff like this calculator had little value for over 30 years every movie you see has props made from other objects.
I showed this to my 74yo dad and he immediately lit up, saying "Oh I remember those! I used to have one back in the day. My dad had one of the old ones that had the handle. Clickety clickety clickety, ker-CHUNK."
I've recommended your channel to him for all this retro tech stuff based on that reaction. lol
This kinda reminds me of the Star Trek TOS tricorder.
LGR, you have the coolest voice, sense of humor, and if I may say so, a handsome fella
The Ghostbusters belt gizmo can be mostly 3D printed now, that's the way to go instead of destroying vintage calculators.
And make the pbc with some pcb printing service
I rebuilt mine two years ago and it still rocks! New batt pack (NiMH upgrade from NiCD), new charger/power supply and general clean up. Beautiful device, in terms of design and functionality! I was lucky to find one in almost mint condition.
My guess. The capacitor turned into a resistor for that one element in the nixie tube. It would have been handy if something popped with magic smoke so it could be identified. Ten years after approximately, I got a credit card size calculator with a solar panel for power. I like the miniaturization. The calculating machine plans in the clockwork age were apparently the size of a cathedral. Just for collating projectile targeting. Didn't get built.
I would agree with you on capacitor checking or even just a matter of course replace them all. But remember, you can go up in voltage rating but not too much on capacitance rating. For example you can replace a 500uf 25v cap with a 650uf 50v cap. As long as the capacitance is within a 5% max tolerance, you should be good.
Shame im not in your country. I would love to repair such an ancient LGR THING!
I agree if it was a capacitor, it would not be identifiable. Can it also be a resistor that would be burned out on the inside? Like when the original battery was taken out, there was some melt marks.
Super cool, i also just love this kind of stuff! Had an early 70's mains powered Citizen (can't recall the model name) desk calculator which looked pretty much the same inside with these four chipsets but those were made by Sharp. Or at least they said so. Slightly different looking "VFD-tubes" with that lovely light green glow as you normally see on later 70's pocket calculators. I found it at a second hand store for roughly 10 euros.
Today i only have left my Canon Palmtronic LD-81 from my birthyear 1975, which i bring out to use occasionally. It works a treat and i love the clicky metal membrane keys on it 😀.
Good news, Clint; there _are_ a couple of prop companies that have started making reproduction boards for the belt gizmo props. So, hopefully, the poaching of these mathematical marvels will taper off.
A video explaining what the issue is and fixing it would be awesome
At first I thought the incomplete zero symbol was intentional, because I know some old calculators display a "lowercase" zero so you won't confuse it with an 8.
As far as I know that was only Sharp, and it may have been more a power saving feature than a clarifying one since it meant lighting two less segments per digit when zeros were displayed.
Man that battery indicator is so cool. I want a smartphone with an indicator like that.
6:30 If you think that's bad, take a look at Texas Instruments Exactras. Considering they were super cheap and mass produced to hell and back, they're nearly impossible to find nowadays and go for bonkers money because the bubble strip that goes over the LED displays was used on Luke Skywalker's lightsaber in Episode 4. Balls.
Those key switches blew my mind! So simple, durable and reliable. Just brilliant!
I hope you find a working one sometime soon. Those early calculators are the fossils of modern technology.
The sheer build quality of this... this... artefact. This is a statement, an extension of life. People bought this to enhance their lives. Not to run away from it. Not just a today's consumer good.
This design derived from the much bigger, heavier, discrete component based, and much more expensive desktop office electronic calculators, about the size of a typewriter, which were common for almost a decade before this came out, that's why the price was not unreasonable, you were getting the same functionality and better portability at a fraction of the price, but still a price which allowed the build quality to be similar. The key, of course, to this shrinkage, in both size and price, was rapidly evolving IC technology. But as complete 'calculators-on-a-chip' became cheap and ubiquitous it no longer made sense to invest so heavily in the rest of the build quality when the rest of the industry were busy developing serviceable but MUCH cheaper designs. Not sure what this very natural market trend has to do with 'running away from life' but not all the calculators introduces in this latter market phase were cheap junk, there were still some extremely high quality products being made, such as from HP.
In 1976, the University of Northern Iowa had a row of 10 of these in the library.
Talk to Adrian from Adrian's Digital Basement for help. You just need to pay him in sugar-free sweets. 🤣
Great video, and I hope you can get this fixed. Technically, the Royal Digital III was a smaller (single chip!) calculator that came out in '71 - but it only had a four digit display(!!) - hence the advert for the Sanyo being specific about it being the smallest *16 digit* calculator. At the time, the number of digits a calculator had was a big deal, and most calculators had a button to switch between 'high' and 'low' digits to make the most of their limited displays.
Yay new LGR!!!!
This is likely to have been mentioned here before, but it could be worth your while to swap out all the electrolytic capacitors. That way you will at least know that capacitors are not to blame and by the looks of the board, it shouldn't be neither expensive nor difficult to swap them. Though the current capacitors might not have any bulges or leaks, they might simply have dried up long time ago, and since there is no way to test their functionality while in circuit, they have to go either way. You might not be able to find exact matches to the ones installed, but if I remember correctly, you can always use the nearest higher value in uF, as long as the voltage rating is the same. There are probably resources online that can calculate the best options available, as new old stock in the capacitor market really isn't a thing.
Thanks for a great video!
I found a calculator with a very similar design language (as would be expected) in a thrift(?) store, a Sanyo ICC-1123 (it looks quite similar to the ICC-0161 shown in the ad at 2:00)
Really cool. Thanks for showing the insides of it. Hopefully you can get it going better so you can do your retro calculations more completely 😁
here so fast 🥰
I have a TI-1025 from 1978. Got it from my great grandmother in its original box with instructions. Runs off a 9V battery and also has a port to power it from the wall, which I thought was just the coolest thing back when I got it. If the internet is to be believed, it was $12 new. It has a slightly different feature set than the unit here, but amazing how much cheaper similar tech was just seven years later.
You should get in touch with Fran at her UA-cam channel, Fran's Lab -- she does alot of stuff with these old displays and electronics.
I know a certain man who loves fixing vintage electronics and those beautiful gold ceramic early IC packaging. CuriousMarc, one of his biggest projects was being on a team that restored an AGC for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, also restored a xerox alto.
2 minutes. Wow, I'm early.
Also, this is what they called "mini", lol.
I have a 1973 desk calculator made in Japan by National for Olympia. Nixie tube display, has several boards FULL of chips, weights a ton and is as large as a compact typewriter. So the one in this video is "mini" indeed! :-)