Friden EC-130 Help

[jwsmobile]

On 2/2/2015 12:38 AM, drlegendre . wrote:
> Forgive me, or don't..
>
> On Mon, Feb 2, 2015 at 1:44 AM, jwsmobile <jws at jwsss.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hams broke up a huge number of these calculators in the past to harvest
>> just the CRT and junked the rest.
>
> Wow, and what a bunch of short-sighted a$$holes they were.
>
>
My buy was not unusual.  The dealer had sold out probably 50 of them and 
I got the last ones he had.  They were considered more valuable for the 
display than as an artifact.  Remember this is in the 1975 and prior 
time frame.  And a lot were kept around, but there were really a lot 
retired as the revolution of the small solid state units showed up.

The Wang and fancier older units with scientific processing (read 
floating point) survived quite a bit longer.  And the HP ones of course 
were in a different class.

But going from 71 when I started college and into the time when I found 
these, the small LED 7 segment gizmos were mostly wiping these out.  I'm 
not talking everywhere, but these would be in business settings, and the 
newer calculators were more popular than these which are effectively 
RPN.  Not that you couldn't do what you needed to, but in business, 
calculators that ran tapes didn't easily map functionality into this 
unit, so shifting to one of these and then back to a possible mechanical 
calculator to run a tape not only required a change in how you ran the 
info, but also how you did the problem.

I never would have considered breaking one up unless it was a basket 
case, as the last thing that burned out in these were the CRT modules.

But he had sold a lot of junkers he had to a local ham who was going to 
salvage them.  He had been given notice that he would not have a job, 
and he had a house full of crap to clear out as far as he was 
concerned.  As I do now, I showed up and transfer crap from one place in 
Lafayette, La, to my place.

I don't call them assholes, but it is unfortunate that more were not 
salvaged.  But I see why.  BTW more perspective on the guy I found it 
was not a really good time for him, he could have walked away from the 
rented house and left all the crap.  Crappy pay from a flaky company was 
where he was at and soon no pay.

Jim