13 Nov
1998
13 Nov
'98
1:56 a.m.
Hi,
I haven't heard of a "Calcomp", but CompuCorp also made a line
of desktop calculators (also marketed by Monroe, Dietzgen, and
possibly others) that were offered in the early-mid 70's that
had an optional punch-card reader that you plug into the
back of the machine. I just obtained several of those card
readers, cards, and the card holder & stylus (which are much
like you described) and hope to have some photos of this
stuff on my Web site soon. The CompuCorp calculators were
designed such that you _had_ to use the punch-card reader to
access all of the programming functions - while the machines
were keyboard-programmable there were a lot of program codes
that couldn't be entered directly from the keyboard.
Also, so far I'm not aware of any CompuCorp desktop machines
that had both display and printer as you describe. The Monroe
1655 that's on my Web page (also sold by CompuCorp as their model
122) is a nixie machine, and the 1765 I'm getting is a printing-
only machine (with special surveyor's functions) with what looks
to be a 16-column impact printer.
Regards,
Alex
Calculator History & Technology Archive Web Page
http://aknight.home.mindspring.com/calc.htm
At 10:05 AM 11/13/98 -0500, Chuck wrote:
Hi Alex;
Interesting site. I'm curious if you (or anyone else here) has
heard of a programmable calculator by, I beleive' "Calcomp". We had one
in high school in mid 70's - it came with an integrated printer, probably
about 40 columns, can't recall what the display was, maybe blue
flourescent, - and the interesting thing is you could program it with
punch cards. Once you code something, you put a card into a hand
held card punch holder that was a rubber backing with slots beneath
all the holes, and use a stylus to punch out the holes. Then you could
program it by feeding the cards into a little motorized reader plugged
into the Calcomp.
That was my first programming experience which led to a lust
for Mark-8's and Altairs, etc.
Chuck
cswiger(a)widomaker.com