Does Casio's New Calculator Watch Take You Back To 6th Grade Math Class? (techspot.com) 25
Slashdot reader jjslash brings word that Casio "has reintroduced its iconic calculator watch featuring a retro design with green text on a negative LCD and a classic keypad layout."
TechSpot reports that the watch was based on the Casio Mini personal calculator first released in the early 1970s — even offering a keypad using the original fonts (with numbers separated by grid lines): Even the mode button, colored red, is a nod to the calculator's power indicator. The watches' calculator function can add, subtract, multiply, and divide up to eight digits. As for watch functions, you get dual time, an alarm, stopwatch functionality, and more...
Casio's original personal calculator debuted in 1972, and cost $59.95. It featured a six-digit display, was a quarter the size of its competitors, and cost just a third of rival products. The calculator was an instant hit for Casio, selling a million units in the first 10 months on the market and more than six million units over the span of the series.
Long-time Slashdot reader antdude says "I still wear one! Casio Data Bank 150 model...!"
Share your own vintage calculator memories in the comments...
TechSpot reports that the watch was based on the Casio Mini personal calculator first released in the early 1970s — even offering a keypad using the original fonts (with numbers separated by grid lines): Even the mode button, colored red, is a nod to the calculator's power indicator. The watches' calculator function can add, subtract, multiply, and divide up to eight digits. As for watch functions, you get dual time, an alarm, stopwatch functionality, and more...
Casio's original personal calculator debuted in 1972, and cost $59.95. It featured a six-digit display, was a quarter the size of its competitors, and cost just a third of rival products. The calculator was an instant hit for Casio, selling a million units in the first 10 months on the market and more than six million units over the span of the series.
Long-time Slashdot reader antdude says "I still wear one! Casio Data Bank 150 model...!"
Share your own vintage calculator memories in the comments...
Do young people still use watches? (Score:4, Interesting)
Do young people still use watches?
I thought the cellphone was the new watch.
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Do young people still use watches?
I thought the cellphone was the new watch.
Yes, they do. However, they are more fashion accessories now. They are large and "blingy". I hate them. My Go To watch now is a Casio MRW-200H ( https://www.casio.com/us/watch... [casio.com] )
absolutely (Score:1)
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The watch is a fashion accessory nothing more. It was never about telling time. Time is free, you can ask virtually anyone for it or get it from anywhere.
Re: Do young people still use watches? (Score:1)
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it's quicker to turn my wrist than pull out my phone, especially while driving.
...but why would you need a watch while driving? Most cars have in internal display clock built in somewhere on the car dashboard.
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Because the car's clock slowly drifts out of sync from atomic time and I'm too lazy to keep resynchronizing it, also it doesn't show the date.
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Sure, they wear a smart watch or fitness band. I wear the latter (Xiaomi Mi Band 6) and it's actually quite insightful.
I assume you can get a calculator app for the watches, although I never really understand why you would want one.
DUNNO (Score:3)
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does it say b00bs?
The only reason anyone knows 1337: it's the gateway to upside-down 5318008.
This Brings me Back to the mid 1980's (Score:4, Informative)
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When I was at UCLA, calculators were prohibited in chemistry exams. Slide rules were allowed, and I believe that the exam pages had a log table either as an extra page, or printed on the back side. Here is a (ahem) National Museum of American History page showing what I used: Pickett N500-ES [si.edu] The nitric odor in Young Hall usually but not always exceeded that of the Los Angeles air.
When I was late teens age I picked up a Wyle WS-02 desk calculator at a surplus store. It was a masterpiece of barely feasible
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A couple of years ago I picked up a Sharp EL-5100. The screen has sunburn but you can buy replacement LCDs. It wasn't too hard to fit the new LCD, used some UV glue to to attach the plastic cover without any bubbles. The PCB need a bit of cleaning and solder mask replacement where the batteries had leaked.
It's a great calculator, and the slide action on the case is immensely satisfying. I'm happy to have fixed it too, saved from landfill.
Older calculators were expensive and as such were often made of nicer
RPN for the win (Score:4, Interesting)
My first calculator was an HP35
and we weren't allowed to use calculators in (external) exams, we had to use log tables.
Re: RPN for the win (Score:2)
I hate log tables. Too bumpy. Really should plane them down to boards.
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No. PP is probably thinking about something like the Alaska Highway [pbs.org]. Also known as corduroy roads.
They were cool for about a week (Score:4, Interesting)
And then you came to the realization that the buttons are small and awkward to push, and immobilizing your watch hand while you push the buttons with your other hand is less good than just pushing buttons on a pocket calculator.
By the time I went through gradeschool in the 90s, they'd given up on the "calculators dull the mind" dogma and handed out school-approved calculators for math class. There were still arithmetic drills, of course. But after the obligatory speed test at the start of math class, in which Mrs H would hand out mimeographed sheets, face down, containing 30 arithmetic problems, say "Go!" and give a special sticker to whoever go the most right in 90 seconds, she would hand out the calculators and proceed to the real meat of the curriculum where mathematical reasoning was the objective and arithmetic accuracy was important but also incidental.
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By the time I went through gradeschool in the 90s, they'd given up on the "calculators dull the mind" dogma ..
Your text below seems to indicate otherwise. The drills you mention are precisely designed to offset the negative effects of going 100% calculator.
... and handed out school-approved calculators for math class. There were still arithmetic drills, of course. But after the obligatory speed test at the start of math class, in which Mrs H would hand out mimeographed sheets, face down, containing 30 arithmetic problems, say "Go!" and give a special sticker to whoever go the most right in 90 seconds, she would hand out the calculators and proceed to the real meat of the curriculum where mathematical reasoning was the objective and arithmetic accuracy was important but also incidental.
Calculators had become an established tool. Students needed to learn how to use them too. However the drills avoided a phenomena called equipment dependency.
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Look at the username. He honestly believes that learning arithmetic is pointless in the age of inexpensive electronic calculators. He'd forget his own name if his mother hadn't written it in magic marker on the waste band of his underwear.
I've seen what happens when students don't drill their multiplication tables and it isn't pretty. Kids with parents who drilled them anyway have a significant advantage in math and science. It shows up as early as long division, but really becomes apparent when they st
Too bad it doesn't come with digital invaders (Score:4, Informative)
Some of the Casio watches back then had a game on it called digital invaders where numbers would "invade" from the right, and you had to match the numbers streaming in to destroy them. There is a standalone version on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
I've also seen other versions on the web... There may be an iOS version as well.
Anyways, those watches were highly prized as they could provide much needed always available boredom relief back before cell phone games. I'm surprised that casino's current models (or this one) do not host the game. It would be a trivial cost and effort to add it on with today's technology.
Available now (Score:1)
Remake this one (Score:2)
I still wear a 1983 Casio CFX-200 scientific calculator watch, with a chrome case. People who see it often comment on it.
It does all the things you'd expect of a scientific calculator.
Unfortunately I cracked the crystal, and you can't get it replaced.