| Our second-last stop was in a nicer part of a neighbourhood I used to live in, so the items there were more up-scale than we'd seen earlier. In a nondescript box was this addition to my small collection of old calculating devices.
It's a Panasonic JE-855U Electronic Calculator from 1972/73, a year after the first commercially-available single-chip scientific calculator was released. It's the 2nd model in the series, with the addition of single-item memory. It was also sold as the Olympia CD-81 in Europe.
It uses a Texas Instruments TMS 0131 processor, has reed-switch keys, and an 8-digit display using green vacuum fluorescent tubes. There are some pictures of the internals for an Olympia at the Vintage Calculators Web Museum.
And it works! Not so well with 4 AA-cell batteries - a digit will register with the first press, but not after. But it's fine with the power adapter. It was sold with a rechargeable battery pack but mine didn't have one.
It isn't worth a lot as far as eBay is concerned - one with the rechargeable pack but without the adapter sold for $30 a couple months ago. I got this vintage nerd goodness for a whole... $6. :)
So this Thanksgiving I am also grateful for this little gem, and my good friend PM who led me to it! | )
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