silver threads among the gold

[lucy24]

Yesterday I replaced the batteries in my calculator for, I think, the second time ever.

And your point is ...?

I have had this calculator FOREVER*. When scientific calculators were first introduced, manufacturers sent them out to people in the sciences , presumably in hopes that they would recommend them to ten others. (This was long before high school math classes included a graphing calculator among required materials; calculators were a nerd accessory.) My father was a chemistry professor and must have had a drawer full of them; this one he passed along to me. And yes, I use it daily. It lives on the computer table because I find it much handier to grab a hand-held calculator than to fire up the computer's Calculator function.

Tangentially, it's encouraging to see that batteries are so standardized, you can readily replace them even in something half a century old.

...

We will not talk about how long I spent trying to edit this post’s Live Preview, because I’m accustomed to “preview on top, edit on bottom”. Oh well.

* I had always assumed mid-to-late 70s, when I was in high school, but I looked it up and sources say this model was introduced in 1982. Sharp EL-507, if anyone wondered. The manufacturer has dozens of manuals online, but alas not this one. That's how old it is.

[Martin Potter]

I wondered; thanks for telling us (Sharp EL-507).
Mine is a Hewlett-Packard 41CV, almost the same vintage. It isn't used quite as often as yours, but it takes type "N" batteries which I can still buy at the specialty battery stores. Not sure what I will do when that dries up eventually, because I have no intention of replacing the calculator.
As you say, it is encouraging.

[ReMember]

Me too, but I had to get a newer one with extra large buttons and display cause I don't see all that good these days.
Funny how you get good at using a calculator left handed (if you're right handed) and have it directly to the left of your keyboard.
Right hand for mouse and keyboard, left hand calculator.
I'll never forget my awe and excitement seeing my first calculator (used to use a slide rule, pounds and pence and paper)
Especially when they showed me how to enter 71077345 and turn it upside down to read 'shell oil'
That was a BIG deal for me at the time - it changed my life.

[Marshall]

I've never replaced the batteries in my slide rule and it's about 50 years old. :o)

[not2easy]

I've never replaced the batteries in my slide rule and it's about 50 years old.

I got mine in 1974. Yours should be fine for years to come. I have retired my abacus though, it hangs on the wall now.

[tangor]

Are you guys saying there's something better than fingers and toes?

[lucy24]

Right hand for mouse and keyboard, left hand calculator.

I use--ahem, cough-cough--both hands on the keyboard, but mouse left-handed. When I got my first computer, way back when, I thought this would be easier for my left-handed toddler. (Misguided in retrospect, since it is easier for a child to learn to use the “wrong” hand than for an adult to do so. Interestingly, I set my “secondary click” to the left ever since this option existed, while my now-grown son keeps his on the right.)

The calculator lives on the left side of the table, freeing up the right side for my tea mug.

I think I was in one of the very last years to learn to use a slide rule. Don’t suppose I would remember it now, though. On a shelf in his study my father had a glorious device called the Thacher Calculating Instrument (look it up, think slide rule on steroids) which he rescued from a colleague who was going to throw it out.

it takes type "N" batteries

My brain mis-rendered this as “D batteries” leading to a very fine mental picture.

[Martin Potter]

Ooooh, a Thacher! Oh, lucy, what happened to it? Didn't you inherit it? They are famous! The next best thing to having a Kurta calculator! That's another one that doesn't need the batteries to be replaced.

And then a calculator with 4 "D" cells -- Hey, that display would also be bright enough to light up your slide rule so you could use it in the dark.

[lucy24]

Didn't you inherit it?

Alas no. Best guess, it wound up with one of my brothers.* I saw one on Antiques Roadshow a few years back (appraised at $800), which was fun: “Ooh, ooh, I know what that is!”

* Possibly, though not necessarily, the same brother who made off with my Led Zeppelin bootlegs.

[Martin Potter]

And I spelt it wrong! ---> Curta calculator

<shameless plug> Anyone here who is interested in the history and preservation of slide rules and other (non-electronic) calculating engines, of which there are many kinds, might consider joining the Oughtred Society [oughtred.org] . </plug>

brother

I have a brother like that. But he is ... my brother.

[coothead]

I bought my Casio fx-115 scientific calculator in the early 1970's
and it still works perfectly. I have never needed to change it's
battery either, because it's solar powered.

coothead