I enrolled in a 1 credit class, "using the slide rule", my 1st semester at MDCC; upon showing up to the class, a notice on the board said "class cancelled". I proceeded to go to the book store and bought a TI-30....
I have 4 excellent examples of the original Ti-30. Including my very first one I bought for a College class on "Math with Calculators". When I dust them off and demonstrat them for the "Kids", their always facinated by the little roving red LED that shows up for the second or three it takes for the VERY SLOW processor to perform the required calculations! Ah! The "Good old Days!"
My TI30 was replaced by a TI51-II I believe? It's battery did not last long, then bought an HP35E, and that was that. I have never owned a non-rpm calculator since.
I had one of these back when I was in high school. Mine came with the famous "International Math on Keys" book that showed how to use the calculator for all kinds of everyday uses. Now I just use a calculator app on my smart phone.
HP-35 first appeared in January 4, 1972 was the death of the slide rule then TI SR-50 followed in July 1974. The slide rule was pretty much dead between 1972 and 1975.
I'm struck by the fact that the first calculator *I* had, the Omron 86SR, had basically this identical function set with the identical precision... *except* for the parentheses for algebraic entry. Didn't have those. I suspect they were trying their best to replicate the TI-30's set. I still find it a little weird when calculators don't use postfix for single-argument function buttons, because I'm so used to the way early scientific calculators worked. (And then switched to HP RPN calculators, where everything is postfix.)
Had an SR-40 in 1979. Was a very nice graduation gift. That only problem was that the battery didn't last very long with those LED digits! You had to carry the 120-vac power adapter to class.
My dad used to have something similar to that but I don't remember what it was. I think it was an HP something or other and used the stack mechanism. I was always amused to find that you could plug in the calculator.
RPN, using a stack was a pleasant method for computing. I used an HP41 through college, such a cool calculator. RPN require a bit of mental work to arrange operations, but was a bit less typing.
When I was in High School my Junior year (1975-1976) we used School-issued slide rules since calculators were "too expensive" for everyone to own one. My Senior year (1976-1977) everyone had an electronic calculator. I had a "scientific calculator" in College. Most of the serious engineering and business students had the more-expensive HP calculators with the infamous Reverse-Polish Notation. For decades I've used special calculators that can handle foot-inch and metric inputs directly...."my other brain". I still have that Junior-year slide-rule in my desk, and several others.
My brother had a K&E, can't remember the model...then got an SR-56. I got a TI-58c, and that got me through college. However, today, I still use my N-500-ES, and occasionally a Chinese 13-rod, or a modern Japanese soroban. I don't have an addiator. 😊
The HP-35 certainly ‘wounded’ the slide rule market, and definitely marks the beginning of the end for slide rules. But it cost $400 in 1972… roughly $2K to $3K in current dollars, too much for many (especially students like me). Even the initial TI offerings were quite expensive. But the TI-30 was so cheap that slide rules could really no longer compete.
You're off by two years. In 1974, TI introduced the SR-50 (with hyperbolic functions). That's when I personally bought one, and stopped using my Pickett N-500-T. It was in that year, thanks to HP and TI offerings, that using a slide rule became an embarrassment among my colleagues. In 1975, TI added parentheses (and 2nd keys and stats) to their new, still "professional," calculators, nullifying any advantage RPN had. (In 1972, HP marketing for their 9820A desktop calculator was pointing out the superiority of algebraic entry over RPN! RPN places the burden of parsing math on the user, so it's easier to implement in a limited handheld, such as the HP-35/45. But then HP was stuck with RPN as a market differentiator. Today, HP calcs use algebraic entry by default.) By 1976, prices had dropped so much that the TI-30 (and all subsequent TI-3* models) was being explicitly marketed to high school students (from a 1976 TI sales brochure). (Like you, I'm a collector of calculating devices.)
The meaning of "death" could be argued I suppose, but by 1976 due to the TI-30's low cost (and other low cost entrants), I think the remaining hold-outs are out buying calculators to replace their slide rules. The education world/market, at least a couple years behind the times, is catching up too. You're right the TI-30 is mainly advertised for high school purchases although the functionally identical SR-40 is marketed toward college and the low-end professional market. Price point differentiation at its finest. This is about the time that I start disliking TI as a company -- when they start pushing calculator use in education. It's a light push at first but really picks-up in the '80s and '90s. I think we have to differentiate modern calculators from both the RPN style and AOS style. For example, on a modern calculator, you'd press "sin" and it would type "sin(" to your current input. This is different from both RPN and AOS. AOS isn't exactly natural in the sense that you have to type the input then key the function, except for the four arithmetical functions. This is what really differentiates them syntactically: RPN uses postfix for both unary and binary operations where AOS uses postfix for unary and infix, subject to the usual order of operations, for binary. You're right the second is a tad harder to implement. I bet the HP-35/45 hardware was capable of doing it (especially the 45 with the larger ROM), but the engineers were focused on copying the 9100's operation in a pocket device. Then there are all the "textbook style" entry calculators out there now... Probably the embarrassing thing these days is actually using a dedicated calculator at work?
Were trig calculations on the TI-30 postfix? So you had to do PI SIN and not SIN(PI)? My somewhat recent TI-30 something or other automatically creates parens for SIN.
All the calculators with one numeric display line were postfix for the trig and logarithms. It was pretty hard to come up with a UI that the average user could follow without an input line. If memory serves, the first two-line calculators that allowed infix for trig came around 1985, probably by Sharp. I finished secondary school with German Abitur in 1988 and couldn't afford anything beside the TI-30 style mix of algebraic with postfix transcendental functions (which made it easy for me to switch to HP RPN when I had some money). From what I recall, the TIs were notorious for having crappy keyboards that broke down way earlier than anybody else's. Here in Germany, in the 1980s the school market was pretty much Casio, despite all the attempts of TI to take over.
Just wondering.... Does the TI-30 SLR+ (1987) accept exponents containing decimals? I'm trying to calculate pH and convert pH values to scientific notation. Having trouble solving pH of 8.5. I can do it on my TI 30X IIS (2003) but I love my 1987 model and only want to use one calculating device while testing.
I know that one slide rule expert had claimed the TI-30 was the decisive blow to the slide rule. It is true that the HP-35 was much more expensive, so slide rules could have coexisted with it if calculators stayed that expensive for a while. But before the TI-30, there were inexpensive scientific calculators from less well-known companies, such as the microlith scientific model 805 calculator with a vacuum fluorescent display.
True, but you only need to try to use one of the earlier non-RPN, non-TI scientific calculators to realize how much of a pain they are to use for actual scientific calculations (not having precedence and only some having parentheses).
I was in the 8th grade in 1976, and I think I had to wait another year to get a TI-30, which cost about $30, if memory serves. That was actually a lot of money for a 14-year-old back then. The drawback to using calculators is that slide rules really cement in your head what logarithms are about and make you think critically about significant digits and powers of 10. Calculators do not. (We were also prohibited from using calculators on tests and exams (up to a point) to make sure that we were able to calculations by hand.) Ye olden days....
The German "Rocket Scientist" (Von Brawn) that developed the huge Saturn 5 moon rocket used nothing but 2 sliderules he had brought to the USA with him. One he had owned since his student days, the second sliderule he bought before the war, in the 1930's. On these he made all the engineering calculations needed to design, test, and fly the Saturn 5. So, thought calculators were "nice to have" they weren't actually necessary for the entire Apollo Program !
My liberal arts college degree from the 70's had a stumbling block... a single statistics course called Psychometrics. The woods were full of students who lacked that once course to graduate, and the majority of those enrolled in the course were taking it for the 2nd, 3rd or later time! Calculators had just started to be allowed since they no longer were a rich pupil's advantage, so I bought a TI-55 key programmable calculator. I just pre-programmed all the equations and plugged in the variables from the tests. Made an A without having a clue of what I was doing. My greatest fear was the 45-minute life of the battery, so I arrived early to get a seat near an AC outlet. The university finally dropped that course requirement, but I think if it had known key programmable calculators existed, it would have banned them!
Remember, TI get from this to the Nspire series....... The world we live now is beyond the wildest imagination of the people living in the slide rule era.......But never forget, we went on the moon with slide rules.
I love the LED display. It’s rather comical how long some calculations take. I took my TI Business Analyst to buy my car. The car salesmen almost lost it.
I enrolled in a 1 credit class, "using the slide rule", my 1st semester at MDCC; upon showing up to the class, a notice on the board said "class cancelled". I proceeded to go to the book store and bought a TI-30....
I have 4 excellent examples of the original Ti-30.
Including my very first one I bought for a College class on "Math with Calculators".
When I dust them off and demonstrat them for the "Kids", their always facinated by the little roving red LED that shows up for the second or three it takes for the VERY SLOW processor to perform the required calculations!
Ah! The "Good old Days!"
My TI30 was replaced by a TI51-II I believe? It's battery did not last long, then bought an HP35E, and that was that. I have never owned a non-rpm calculator since.
My friend has an original TI-30 and it is older than his dad.
Surprisingly [0] [INV] [TAN] still locks up this calculator, like the TI-30 '76 (LED) edition.
I had one of these back when I was in high school. Mine came with the famous "International Math on Keys" book that showed how to use the calculator for all kinds of everyday uses. Now I just use a calculator app on my smart phone.
HP-35 first appeared in January 4, 1972 was the death of the slide rule then TI SR-50 followed in July 1974. The slide rule was pretty much dead between 1972 and 1975.
I'm struck by the fact that the first calculator *I* had, the Omron 86SR, had basically this identical function set with the identical precision... *except* for the parentheses for algebraic entry. Didn't have those. I suspect they were trying their best to replicate the TI-30's set.
I still find it a little weird when calculators don't use postfix for single-argument function buttons, because I'm so used to the way early scientific calculators worked. (And then switched to HP RPN calculators, where everything is postfix.)
I had a TI-30 once upon a time. What a game changer it was.
Good show Professor! I was wondering if you had a calculator collection the other day...
It's definitely not as big as my slide rule collection, but I have a few interesting things.
Had an SR-40 in 1979. Was a very nice graduation gift. That only problem was that the battery didn't last very long with those LED digits! You had to carry the 120-vac power adapter to class.
My dad used to have something similar to that but I don't remember what it was. I think it was an HP something or other and used the stack mechanism. I was always amused to find that you could plug in the calculator.
RPN, using a stack was a pleasant method for computing. I used an HP41 through college, such a cool calculator. RPN require a bit of mental work to arrange operations, but was a bit less typing.
And now I'm off to eBay ...
When I was in High School my Junior year (1975-1976) we used School-issued slide rules since calculators were "too expensive" for everyone to own one. My Senior year (1976-1977) everyone had an electronic calculator. I had a "scientific calculator" in College. Most of the serious engineering and business students had the more-expensive HP calculators with the infamous Reverse-Polish Notation.
For decades I've used special calculators that can handle foot-inch and metric inputs directly...."my other brain".
I still have that Junior-year slide-rule in my desk, and several others.
My brother had a K&E, can't remember the model...then got an SR-56. I got a TI-58c, and that got me through college. However, today, I still use my N-500-ES, and occasionally a Chinese 13-rod, or a modern Japanese soroban. I don't have an addiator. 😊
How did the TI-30 introduced in 1976 "kill" the slide rule when the HP-35 was introduce in 1973?
The HP-35 certainly ‘wounded’ the slide rule market, and definitely marks the beginning of the end for slide rules. But it cost $400 in 1972… roughly $2K to $3K in current dollars, too much for many (especially students like me). Even the initial TI offerings were quite expensive. But the TI-30 was so cheap that slide rules could really no longer compete.
You're off by two years. In 1974, TI introduced the SR-50 (with hyperbolic functions). That's when I personally bought one, and stopped using my Pickett N-500-T. It was in that year, thanks to HP and TI offerings, that using a slide rule became an embarrassment among my colleagues. In 1975, TI added parentheses (and 2nd keys and stats) to their new, still "professional," calculators, nullifying any advantage RPN had. (In 1972, HP marketing for their 9820A desktop calculator was pointing out the superiority of algebraic entry over RPN! RPN places the burden of parsing math on the user, so it's easier to implement in a limited handheld, such as the HP-35/45. But then HP was stuck with RPN as a market differentiator. Today, HP calcs use algebraic entry by default.) By 1976, prices had dropped so much that the TI-30 (and all subsequent TI-3* models) was being explicitly marketed to high school students (from a 1976 TI sales brochure). (Like you, I'm a collector of calculating devices.)
The meaning of "death" could be argued I suppose, but by 1976 due to the TI-30's low cost (and other low cost entrants), I think the remaining hold-outs are out buying calculators to replace their slide rules. The education world/market, at least a couple years behind the times, is catching up too.
You're right the TI-30 is mainly advertised for high school purchases although the functionally identical SR-40 is marketed toward college and the low-end professional market. Price point differentiation at its finest. This is about the time that I start disliking TI as a company -- when they start pushing calculator use in education. It's a light push at first but really picks-up in the '80s and '90s.
I think we have to differentiate modern calculators from both the RPN style and AOS style. For example, on a modern calculator, you'd press "sin" and it would type "sin(" to your current input. This is different from both RPN and AOS. AOS isn't exactly natural in the sense that you have to type the input then key the function, except for the four arithmetical functions. This is what really differentiates them syntactically: RPN uses postfix for both unary and binary operations where AOS uses postfix for unary and infix, subject to the usual order of operations, for binary. You're right the second is a tad harder to implement. I bet the HP-35/45 hardware was capable of doing it (especially the 45 with the larger ROM), but the engineers were focused on copying the 9100's operation in a pocket device. Then there are all the "textbook style" entry calculators out there now... Probably the embarrassing thing these days is actually using a dedicated calculator at work?
Were trig calculations on the TI-30 postfix? So you had to do PI SIN and not SIN(PI)? My somewhat recent TI-30 something or other automatically creates parens for SIN.
All the calculators with one numeric display line were postfix for the trig and logarithms. It was pretty hard to come up with a UI that the average user could follow without an input line. If memory serves, the first two-line calculators that allowed infix for trig came around 1985, probably by Sharp. I finished secondary school with German Abitur in 1988 and couldn't afford anything beside the TI-30 style mix of algebraic with postfix transcendental functions (which made it easy for me to switch to HP RPN when I had some money).
From what I recall, the TIs were notorious for having crappy keyboards that broke down way earlier than anybody else's. Here in Germany, in the 1980s the school market was pretty much Casio, despite all the attempts of TI to take over.
I still have my TI - 30. It still works. Sometimes it's better than more modern ones.
Just wondering.... Does the TI-30 SLR+ (1987) accept exponents containing decimals? I'm trying to calculate pH and convert pH values to scientific notation. Having trouble solving pH of 8.5. I can do it on my TI 30X IIS (2003) but I love my 1987 model and only want to use one calculating device while testing.
You should be able to do it with the 10^x function (inv->log). The EE key only takes integers on most old calculators.
For 10^2.3 hit: 2.3 inv log
@@ProfessorHerning Worshipping you now. THANK YOU!!!
I know that one slide rule expert had claimed the TI-30 was the decisive blow to the slide rule. It is true that the HP-35 was much more expensive, so slide rules could have coexisted with it if calculators stayed that expensive for a while. But before the TI-30, there were inexpensive scientific calculators from less well-known companies, such as the microlith scientific model 805 calculator with a vacuum fluorescent display.
True, but you only need to try to use one of the earlier non-RPN, non-TI scientific calculators to realize how much of a pain they are to use for actual scientific calculations (not having precedence and only some having parentheses).
I was in the 8th grade in 1976, and I think I had to wait another year to get a TI-30, which cost about $30, if memory serves. That was actually a lot of money for a 14-year-old back then. The drawback to using calculators is that slide rules really cement in your head what logarithms are about and make you think critically about significant digits and powers of 10. Calculators do not. (We were also prohibited from using calculators on tests and exams (up to a point) to make sure that we were able to calculations by hand.) Ye olden days....
The German "Rocket Scientist" (Von Brawn) that developed the huge Saturn 5 moon rocket used nothing but 2 sliderules he had brought to the USA with him. One he had owned since his student days, the second sliderule he bought before the war, in the 1930's. On these he made all the engineering calculations needed to design, test, and fly the Saturn 5.
So, thought calculators were "nice to have" they weren't actually necessary for the entire Apollo Program !
My liberal arts college degree from the 70's had a stumbling block... a single statistics course called Psychometrics. The woods were full of students who lacked that once course to graduate, and the majority of those enrolled in the course were taking it for the 2nd, 3rd or later time! Calculators had just started to be allowed since they no longer were a rich pupil's advantage, so I bought a TI-55 key programmable calculator. I just pre-programmed all the equations and plugged in the variables from the tests. Made an A without having a clue of what I was doing. My greatest fear was the 45-minute life of the battery, so I arrived early to get a seat near an AC outlet. The university finally dropped that course requirement, but I think if it had known key programmable calculators existed, it would have banned them!
Remember, TI get from this to the Nspire series....... The world we live now is beyond the wildest imagination of the people living in the slide rule era.......But never forget, we went on the moon with slide rules.
I love the LED display. It’s rather comical how long some calculations take. I took my TI Business Analyst to buy my car. The car salesmen almost lost it.
its time for the
Totalmente true