Non-Scientific Survey of Scientific Calculators

They sold for $99 back then, but the $99 was worth $400.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

You've only had 4 times inflation since 1972? It's more like 10-20 times in the UK. Beer was 15p a pint or less in 1972, its now £2.50 a pint and more.

Okay, the inflation calculator says $476 to 2006

Inflation is a hard thing to really judge-- there was a lot of inflation in the mid to late 1970s, a rather similar period to today in some ways. Beer might be up 5:1 or more- I can remember 50 cent little draft glasss ca. 1975 and half that on a military base ca. '74. IIRC, gasoline was maybe 60 cents an Imperial gallon in '73-74-- what is that.. 6-7p/liter at today's exhange rate? So up 7:1 or 8:1.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

lation/infl.cgi

You have the ear of 1970s inflation placed a little late in time. Remember there was galloping inflation in 1972 and 1973 even with the Nixon wage and price controls.

About 1967 or 1968 was the peak in the standard of living in the US. The US had to have some drop because the Vietnam war had to be paid for and the oil producers started to want money in exchange for the oil.

"Beer" isn't a very good thing to use as your yard stick. It is mostly water. They can change the portion that is not water to change the production costs. See Coors :)

How do you figure? I remember one car, one black-and-white TV, small house, and meat only on special occasions.

Cheers, James Arthur

Hard to say which is my "main" calculator...I have a collection. The HPs are my faves (HP32s, HP11), followed by a National Semiconductor scientific calculator that's great (reverse-polish entry, LED display), plus an assortment of Casios.

Truthfully, usually none are handy, so often I just use the ol' bean.

Cheers, James Arthur

Right about that time I got an HP35 for $400. I still have it. I also got a PDP-11, which taught me how to think.

John

HP28S and HP48G. mostly I use the 28S, had it for 21 years.

Cheers Terry

Well, the Beav had it pretty good then but pretty much everyone else is far better off now.

I still have the HP-45 that I bought in '73 for $400. I was a college kid making $2/hr at the time.

Doesn't it rip your shirt pockets?

We bought a NatSemi PACE development system in '75 or so to learn how to program microprocessors (management didn't like them much so we had to keep the hardware hidden). We bought a couple of PDP-11s a few years later, but they were buried inside Tektronics gear and I never bothered doing any programming on the metal. It was all Tektronics Signal Processing BASIC. Nice stuff.

Yeah, but I could go to Houlihan's on Bourbon Street and get a draft beer for a quarter and raw oysters for 10 cents each.

When I was a kid, we were too poor to eat meat very often, so we had to make do with shrimp. My wife, who grew up around Boston, had the same situation, only with lobsters.

John

Your personla experience was one of poverty but on the average wage earners had a peak in standard of living in about those years. It was only in the 1990's that the level was reached again.

Single earner "labor class" households put the kids through university, paid off the house, bought cars and in general did quite nicely.

Then you should be able to easily see the class gap that exists today.

There is virtually no middle class.

snip

They're not doing so well.

I once managed a PDP-11/70 system, after that a DG Eclipse MV9600U.

Trying to keep your perfect record, eh Dimbulb?

Using a Casio Algebra FX 2.0 plus.

Considering getting a Casio Classpad 330...

Well, I really was starting to wonder if I was going crazy, until "Chairman" posted this link:

Mine was the "Sears C2", a 5-function job that ran on house current and sported a LCD display (Not LED). Thing is, I recall mine was black, with a silver (or maybe black?) front, so maybe that was the Lloyds Accumatic version of the same thing (made by Rockwell according to the article.)

Check out the link if you get time. It's like a stroll down memory lane. (No pun intended.)

I had forgotten that in high school, I also had the TI-30, and also the Sharp Elsi-Mate EL-8118. The former met it demise under the screeching rear wheels of my friend's Ford Maverick (302 Engine) when it's flake-y keypad screwed me for the very last time on an AP Physics exam. (That calculator had lots of problems from day-1 -- and I am NOT blaming my tools. It really was a POS!) We half expected it to explode, but I think there were less than five components in the whole device!!

The ElsiMate arrived slightly earlier, and as I recall I really liked it. I probably gave it to a niece or nephew somewhere along the way, when I finally switch to programmable handhelds.

And yes, I really do use the programming capabilities on my current HP48GX's =2E...though the HP-41's were MUCH better IMO, if a bit less capable.

-mpm