27 Sep
2001
27 Sep
'01
8:34 a.m.
I quit using most of my other calculators and, today,
use an HP 25C almost
exclusively, though I have a '21 also. I didn't know those were
collectibles.
back in the '70's, I modified the battery
holder so I could replace the
batteries when they went bad. This was a common problem. The use of
1.5-volt
batteries probably won't hurt anything if my own
calculators are any
indication,
though I've usually replaced the NiCd types with
others of the same sort.
Way back in '77 (I think), I got a mailing from TI advertising and
offerring for sale the TI Programmer, which was a simple 4-function
calculator in that standard black-plastic format they used to use,
replete with the also-standard LEDs. However, it wasn't actually a
four-function calculator, because it included radix conversion and
several standard logical operators.
At home, when I need radix conversion, instead of the Casio Fx-115m or
the Calc accessory, I still reach for the TI Programmer...
-dq
27 Sep
27 Sep
9:05 a.m.
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
Way back in '77 (I think), I got a mailing from TI
advertising and
offerring for sale the TI Programmer, which was a simple 4-function
calculator in that standard black-plastic format they used to use,
replete with the also-standard LEDs. However, it wasn't actually a
four-function calculator, because it included radix conversion and
several standard logical operators.
At home, when I need radix conversion, instead of the Casio Fx-115m or
the Calc accessory, I still reach for the TI Programmer...
The TI "Programmer" (NOT to be confused with "programmable") was one
of
the first basic calculators to offer hexadecimal arithmetic and
hex/decimal conversion. The LED display really ate batteries, and it
could go through a battery discharge in less time than it takes Windoze to
boot. But if you kept it plugged into the wall, it worked great.
Then they came out with a new model of it with LCD display. The batteries
got great life, but the keyboard tended to go before the batteries.
If you like having a calculator that includes hex, one of the really neat
ones is the Casio CFX-40 and CFX-400. It requires good eyes and good
dexterity, since it is a "scientific" calculator in a watch. It's biggest
weakness was a tendency to crack between the display and the keyboard.
I've replaced the case on several.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
9:38 a.m.
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
On Thu, 27 Sep 2001, Douglas Quebbeman wrote:
And for those with weak eyes, there is always the Casio CM-100
solar-powered `computer math calc' handheld. I think no longer
manufactured, though.
- don
Way back in '77 (I think), I got a mailing
from TI advertising and
offerring for sale the TI Programmer, which was a simple 4-function
calculator in that standard black-plastic format they used to use,
replete with the also-standard LEDs. However, it wasn't actually a
four-function calculator, because it included radix conversion and
several standard logical operators.
At home, when I need radix conversion, instead of the Casio Fx-115m or
the Calc accessory, I still reach for the TI Programmer...
The TI "Programmer" (NOT to be confused with "programmable") was one
of
the first basic calculators to offer hexadecimal arithmetic and
hex/decimal conversion. The LED display really ate batteries, and it
could go through a battery discharge in less time than it takes Windoze to
boot. But if you kept it plugged into the wall, it worked great.
Then they came out with a new model of it with LCD display. The batteries
got great life, but the keyboard tended to go before the batteries.
If you like having a calculator that includes hex, one of the really neat
ones is the Casio CFX-40 and CFX-400. It requires good eyes and good
dexterity, since it is a "scientific" calculator in a watch. It's biggest
weakness was a tendency to crack between the display and the keyboard.
I've replaced the case on several.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com
12:38 p.m.
I'm still partial to having some of those functions, too, but with a computer
running Windows nearly everywhere I turn, the calculator that's built-in there
seems to work fine. I gave all my TI calculators and printers away a couple of
years back and really don't miss 'em, though I always liked 'em when I used
'em.
They were harder to deal with where batteries were concerned, though, than are
the old HP's, and I think the easy-to-modify battery case is the reason I've
ended up with the HP's.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Quebbeman" <dhquebbeman(a)theestopinalgroup.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 11:34 AM
Subject: RE: Calc wars
I quit using most of my other calculators and,
today, use an HP 25C almost
exclusively, though I have a '21 also. I didn't know those were
collectibles.
back in the '70's, I modified the battery
holder so I could replace the
batteries when they went bad. This was a common problem. The use of
1.5-volt
batteries probably won't hurt anything if my
own calculators are any
indication,
though I've usually replaced the NiCd types
with others of the same sort.
Way back in '77 (I think), I got a mailing from TI advertising and
offerring for sale the TI Programmer, which was a simple 4-function
calculator in that standard black-plastic format they used to use,
replete with the also-standard LEDs. However, it wasn't actually a
four-function calculator, because it included radix conversion and
several standard logical operators.
At home, when I need radix conversion, instead of the Casio Fx-115m or
the Calc accessory, I still reach for the TI Programmer...
-dq
28 Sep
28 Sep
2:50 a.m.
These days, I usually prefer to fire up matlab, even in my older
DAQ & HPIL-specific, DOS-only pc, where I still have my 87/09/09 copy of
pc-matlab 3.13, and my copy of matlab-386 3.5 . If I need more
portability then I resort to (in order of preference) my HP71,
my HP67 or my HP41CV. But my holy grail for portable computations
would be a nice HP200LX w. extra mem. and pcmatlab 3.13; alas, I never
managed to find one I could afford. For a while I had a working HP100LX,
but then it died.
These are the pcmatlab 3.13 benchmarks on a Pentium 166; I think
it is a nice historical comparison:
bench
echo on, clc
% The MATLAB benchmarks. (May take 2-3 minutes)
%
% This demo file runs a set of 7 standard benchmarks:
%
% 1) N=50 Real matrix multiply
% 2) N=50 Real matrix inverse
% 3) N=25 Real eigenvalues
% 4) 4096-point complex FFT
% 5) LINPACK benchmark
% 6) 1000 iteration FOR loop
% 7) N=25 3-D mesh plot
%
% The benchmarks illuminate computer architectural issues that
% affect the speed of software like MATLAB on different machines.
%
% The time for your machine is measured and displayed versus times
% we've already taken from other standard machines.
% ------- Table of benchmark times -------
%
% 1) PC/XT (4.7MHz\8088\CGA)
% 2) PC/AT (6.0MHz\80286\EGA)
% 3) AT&T 6300 (8MHz\8086)
% 4) Compaq 80386 (16MHz\8MHz80287)
% 5) SUN-3/50 (15MHz with 68881)
% 6) SUN-3/260 (25MHz with FPA)
% 7) MicroVAX II (VMS\D_floating)
% 8) Macintosh (8MHz 68000)
% 9) Your Machine
% * inv eig fft LINPACK for mesh
times
times =
9.4500 20.9000 21.0000 12.3000 40.9000 18.0000 15.8000
11.1500 20.6000 20.3000 14.9000 46.9000 6.0000 9.9000
5.2000 11.6000 11.2000 7.1000 23.5000 8.7000 7.4000
5.1600 10.2900 10.1600 7.4700 24.1800 2.9700 3.7900
1.8400 3.6000 3.4000 3.5000 7.7000 2.0000 5.0000
0.7000 0.9000 1.1000 1.0000 1.7000 0.9000 2.0000
2.6000 3.1000 2.9000 2.9000 4.9000 3.2000 25.0000
252.0000 325.0000 306.0000 300.0000 926.0000 21.0000 21.0000
0.0600 0.0500 0.0500 0.0500 0.0684 0.1600 0.5500
pause % Strike any key to continue
echo off
clc
% ------- Table of speed ratios to PC/XT -------
%
% 1) PC/XT (4.7MHz\8088\CGA)
% 2) PC/AT (6.0MHz\80286\EGA)
% 3) AT&T 6300 (8MHz\8086)
% 4) Compaq 80386 (16MHz\8MHz80287)
% 5) SUN-3/50 (15MHz with 68881)
% 6) SUN-3/260 (25MHz with FPA)
% 7) MicroVAX II (VMS\D_floating)
% 8) Macintosh (8MHz 68000)
% 9) Your Machine
% * inv eig fft LINPACK for mesh
ratio
ratio =
1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000
0.8475 1.0146 1.0345 0.8255 0.8721 3.0000 1.5960
1.8173 1.8017 1.8750 1.7324 1.7404 2.0690 2.1351
1.8314 2.0311 2.0669 1.6466 1.6915 6.0606 4.1689
5.1359 5.8056 6.1765 3.5143 5.3117 9.0000 3.1600
13.5000 23.2222 19.0909 12.3000 24.0588 20.0000 7.9000
3.6346 6.7419 7.2414 4.2414 8.3469 5.6250 0.6320
0.0375 0.0643 0.0686 0.0410 0.0442 0.8571 0.7524
157.5000 418.0000 420.0000 246.0000 598.2518 112.5000 28.7273
pause % Strike any key to continue
echo off
clc
% Another popular number to look at is the number of KFlops obtained
% from Jack Dongarra's LINPACK benchmark (sometimes called the Argonne
% benchmark). This number is often advertised by computer manufacturers
% in national trade magazines, comparing their computer versus others
% in terms of floating point performance.
% The LINPACK benchmark compares the performance of different computer
% systems while solving 100'th order dense systems of linear equations in
% a Fortran environment. We're in a C environment, but this doesn't
% stop us from performing the equivalent calculation.
% For solving a system of 100 equations, approximately
nflops = 2/3*100^3 + 2*100^2
nflops =
6.8667e+005
% operations are performed. Using our times from above, we find the
% KFlop/second throughput for the various machines:
KFlops = round(nflops./times(:,5)'/1000)
KFlops =
Columns 1 through 6
17 15 29 28 89 404
Columns 7 through 9
140 1 10044
% PC-XT PC-AT AT&T 386 SUN3 SUN3F McrVAX Mac Yours
% Just for reference, the Cray X-MP achieves 33,000 KFlops!
? quit
2652666 flops.
At 03:38 PM 9/27/01 -0600, Dick wrote:
I'm still partial to having some of those
functions, too, but with a computer
running Windows nearly everywhere I turn, the calculator that's built-in
there
seems to work fine. I gave all my TI calculators and
printers away a
couple of
years back and really don't miss 'em, though I
always liked 'em when I
used 'em.
They were harder to deal with where batteries were
concerned, though, than
are
the old HP's, and I think the easy-to-modify
battery case is the reason I've
ended up with the HP's.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Carlos E. Murillo-Sanchez carlos_murillo(a)nospammers.ieee.org
8338
days inactive
8339
days old
4 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
-
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
cmurillo＠emtelsa.multi.net.co -
dhquebbeman＠theestopinalgroup.com -
donm＠cts.com -
edick＠idcomm.com