From: David Ruggiero <osiris@halcyon.com>
Subject: Calculators! Boy, do I have calculators!
Originator: osiris@halcyon.com
Keywords: calculator historic electronic hewlett packard funny forsale
Reply-To: osiris@halcyon.halcyon.com (David Ruggiero)
Organization: [none - why fight entropy?]
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:31:37 GMT

A dear friend of the family recently passed away, and his wife has asked
for my help in cataloging and disposing of one of her late husband's most
prized possessions...his calculator collection. So I'm sitting here now
surrounded by boxes and boxes of these things, wondering if anyone out there
in net.space wants/needs/covets all or part or even just one of them.

So...please read the following CAREFULLY before replying:

    - ALL of the calculators are at least ten years old, with an average
      age of 12-15 years, near as I can guess. Some are much older (see
      below).

    - Most probably work (judging from my friend's notes), but after this 
      long a time, many battery packs are in pretty poor shape - either
      missing, dead, or (in a few cases) "leaking" (crystalline growths
      visible on the outside of the pack). I make no promises you would
      be able to find a equivalent, replacement battery pack today.
      However...

    - Most (at least 75%) come with a working charger and soft case.

    - Quite a few, especially the HPs, include extra goodies like the
      owner's manuals or programming guides.

    - The brand distribution is approximately as follows:

        + 20 Hewlett-Packards (HP21, HP22, HP34C, HP35, HP55, HP27,
             HP45, HP10, HP65, HP29C, HP21, HP70)

        + 15 assorted scientific calculators (mostly Texas Instruments
             SR50A, TI SR51, TI55, and TI30, with a few Commodore, Sharp
             and National Semiconductor models thrown in for good measure)

        + 10 TI SR10's

        + 35 miscellaneous lower-budget models from a huge variety of
             makers (common names like Sharp, Casio, and TI, with a
             bunch of very strange ones like Melcor, Dataking, Execucal,
             Santron, and APF). This bunch presents a veritable historical
             paegent of the "go-go" years of calculator design - the late
             1970's - with lots of models wouldn't exactly win ergonomic or
             aesthetic design awards (but are good for their laugh value).
             Even a few slide rules (if you're too young to know, don't ask :)
             thrown in for good measure.

        + Several "one of a kind" finds that really have to be seen to
          be believed. These include a Sinclair wrist calculator (probably
          the forerunner to the Timex/Sinclair computer), a micro-sized
          "Monte Carlo" model with a pint-sized battery pack that plugs
          directly into a wall socket to recharge, a Sharp "Mini Calculator"
          that is about the size and shape of a small beach radio, a
          combination desktop calculator/microcassette recorder (for the busy
          high-tech executive, no doubt), and an ancient Commodore desktop
          that actually uses Nixie tubes for the display and flashes them in a
          truly 50s-retro fashion as it "thinks" (multiplication of two large
          numbers actually takes a couple seconds on this puppy).


So that's it. Again, I will entertain offers for all/some/one of this
collection - email if you have further questions. And if *you* don't
want any of these, do you have any bright ideas who might? Maybe a
consumer electronics museum? Third-world vo-tech school? Performance
artist?

All proceeds from the sale of these guys go to my friend's widow (as Dave
Barry would say, "No, he's not making this up").

cheers...

-- 
David Ruggiero  (osiris@halcyon.com)      Seattle, WA