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RIP Jerry Merryman - Inventor of the pocket calculator


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https://www.dallasnews.com/business/texas-instruments/2019/03/05/jerry-merryman-one-three-inventors-texas-instruments-calculator-dies-86

 

"It was late 1965 and Jack Kilby, my boss, presented the idea of a calculator. He called some people in his office. He says, we'd like to have some sort of computing device, perhaps to replace the slide rule. It would be nice if it were as small as this little book that I have in my hand."

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I remember buying a TI scientific calculator when I took college physics and calculus.  At the time , it was fairly sophisticated, and quite expensive.  Now they’re about 20 bucks at Office Depot, and do a lot more.  A basic calculator is practically free.

 

Hard to believe that Kelly Johnson and his team at Lockheed’s ‘Skunkworks’ designed the SR-71 Blackbird - perhaps the greatest airplane ever - with little more than sliderules and protractors.

 

RIP Mr. Merryman

.

Edited by The Senator
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2 hours ago, The Senator said:

 

Hard to believe that Kelly Johnson and his team at Lockheed’s ‘Skunkworks’ designed the SR-71 Blackbird - perhaps the greatest airplane ever - with little more than sliderules and protractors.

 

RIP Mr. Merryman

.

As an aerospace engineer, this still blows my mind! The SR-71 flew on the walls of my childhood bedroom, above plastic models of the same design. The Blackbird is still the sexiest machine ever created, to me! 

 

With the advanced design tools we have today, I cannot fathom creating such a masterpiece with paper, graphite and a slide rule.

 

Thank you indeed Mr. Merryman, because there is no way I could do my job without your contributions to technology. 

 

My TI-83 still never leaves arms reach.

 

RIP

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9 minutes ago, BUFFALOKIE said:

As an aerospace engineer, this still blows my mind! The SR-71 flew on the walls of my childhood bedroom, above plastic models of the same design. The Blackbird is still the sexiest machine ever created, to me! 

 

With the advanced design tools we have today, I cannot fathom creating such a masterpiece with paper, graphite and a slide rule.

 

Thank you indeed Mr. Merryman, because there is no way I could do my job without your contributions to technology. 

 

My TI-83 still never leaves arms reach.

 

RIP

 

A few years back I toured the Intrepid in NYC with a friend, a Boeing engineer, and they had a Lockheed A-12, predecessor of the Blackbird.  My friend lit up and started telling me how it would slowly leak fuel when it sat on the ground because in flight, at Mach 3, the fuselage would expand and seal the leaks.

 

How Johnson and his crew figured this out and accounted for it is beyond me.

.

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RIP

 

And thank you! A few years ago I took some aptitude tests as part of management succession plans at a bank. After telling me a lot things I was good at (yes, there WERE things a was good at!), they warned me I should never be without a calculator by my side. Hey! Nobody told me there would be math! I would have brushed up had I known! I don’t need to know math.....because I DO always have a calculator (and now my phone) by my side. 

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22 minutes ago, The Senator said:

 

A few years back I toured the Intrepid in NYC with a friend, a Boeing engineer, and they had a Lockheed A-12, predecessor of the Blackbird.  My friend lit up and started telling me how it would slowly leak fuel when it sat on the ground because in flight, at Mach 3, the fuselage would expand and seal the leaks.

 

How Johnson and his crew figured this out and accounted for it is beyond me.

.

Im jealous. I've never seen a Blackbird in person, but seeing and touching and inspecting one is a bucket list item for me.

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My freshman year in college (‘75-‘76) we had to use slide rules because scientific calculators were too expensive to assume that everyone would have one. I had a TI-50 which cost $75.  From my sophomore year on, we were allowed to use calculators.  When programmable calculators came along, we weren’t allowed to use them during tests. 

 

Anybody here a diehard HP RPN fan?  I never got used to RPN.  I was exclusively a TI user.

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19 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

My freshman year in college (‘75-‘76) we had to use slide rules because scientific calculators were too expensive to assume that everyone would have one. I had a TI-50 which cost $75.  From my sophomore year on, we were allowed to use calculators.  When programmable calculators came along, we weren’t allowed to use them during tests. 

 

Anybody here a diehard HP RPN fan?  I never got used to RPN.  I was exclusively a TI user.

there are a few old HP calculator users in my office. Their key entry is bass akwards to me.

 

I am impressed though, that their 40-50 year old calculators are still functioning like the day they were new 

Edited by BUFFALOKIE
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11 minutes ago, BUFFALOKIE said:

there are a few old HP calculator users in my office. Their key entry is bass akwards to me.

 

I am impressed though, that their 40-50 year old calculators are still functioning like the day they were new 

I still have my TI from 1975, but I lost the battery charger, so it’s a paperweight. 

 

I agree with your HP key entry description. 

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1 hour ago, Augie said:

RIP

 

And thank you! A few years ago I took some aptitude tests as part of management succession plans at a bank. After telling me a lot things I was good at (yes, there WERE things a was good at!), they warned me I should never be without a calculator by my side. Hey! Nobody told me there would be math! I would have brushed up had I known! I don’t need to know math.....because I DO always have a calculator (and now my phone) by my side. 

 

Something about this story doesn't add up.

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RIP Jerry!  

 

 

Man creates a museum for vintage calculators:

 

https://www.wired.com/2010/08/vintage-calculators/

 

vintage-calculators-660x415.jpg

 

My mother was an accountant.  Our first family calculator was a desktop Uniden... 4 function with memory... It was $70 bucks in early 1970s.  Corded to wall... Figure a family of 6 went to Crystal Beach for $20, if that!  Boy, She didn't trust that calculator!  It had to have paper print out!  LoL... I don't see it here:

 

60de6f8613467f1c32fb06eb709348ca.jpg

 

But Our Mother trusted this, LoL:

 

30121826-antique-60-key-electric-adding-

 

Then thank God this! It had to have paper... Screw that fancy memory function... BUT, if She was living today, no doubt She'd be texting like mad and owning FaceBook, Twitter!  /smh

 

Neo-Luddites unite!

 

61vv9tzLiKL._SX425_.jpg

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Gray Beard said:

My freshman year in college (‘75-‘76) we had to use slide rules because scientific calculators were too expensive to assume that everyone would have one. I had a TI-50 which cost $75.  From my sophomore year on, we were allowed to use calculators.  When programmable calculators came along, we weren’t allowed to use them during tests. 

 

Anybody here a diehard HP RPN fan?  I never got used to RPN.  I was exclusively a TI user.

When did that concept get thrown out the window... High Schools now mandate $600 iPods (and upgrades)... /smh... And annotating perfectly fine books so you can't pass them down to other children is the sick rule in education.

 

Teachers, the system are really ***** -ed up!

Edited by ExiledInIllinois
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1 hour ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

 

 

61vv9tzLiKL._SX425_.jpg

 

 

Doesn’t seem that long ago I had one of these on my desk!  It was still the fastest way to do quick math or sum a total offline.

 

 

Edited by KD in CA
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7 hours ago, Gray Beard said:

My freshman year in college (‘75-‘76) we had to use slide rules because scientific calculators were too expensive to assume that everyone would have one. I had a TI-50 which cost $75.  From my sophomore year on, we were allowed to use calculators.  When programmable calculators came along, we weren’t allowed to use them during tests. 

 

Anybody here a diehard HP RPN fan?  I never got used to RPN.  I was exclusively a TI user.

      Mid 70 dollars roughly makes that $300 in today's dollars.   It's a tough comparison because of today's phones, but that was roughly a day's work.

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