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Nixie Tube Calculator!

T

TanruNomad

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 26, 2010
Messages
563
Location
San Diego, CA
Just picked up my first nixie tube display calculator: the monroe 990, circa 1970. Isn't she purdy :cool:








 
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Chuckster_in_Jax said:
That's a great find. I wonder how much that costs back in 1970. I remember wages were less than $2.00 per hour.
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Sold for $1,250 when it first came out, then dropped to under $1000 within a couple years. Not sure if the pictures show off the size of this thing, but it's huge, bigger than my laptop and weighs about 20lbs.
 
When I started my Maths degree (1972-76) there were two rooms of similar Boroughs machines, The second year we added a room of HP45s on security cables. We did one afternoon of Physics a week and the Physics guy couldn't understand why we wouldn't use slide rules to work out the answers to our experiments...

I learnt to use the IBM 1621 plotter (actually a re-badged Calcomp) and the Tektronics 4010 display scopes so could do least squares fit on the mainframe, but the Calculators were more accessible and quicker.
 
opps got carried away, when I went to do an indusrty placement in an Insurance company it was back to hand cranked coffee mill mechanical calculators. I said YUK at the time but I now find them fascinating
 
Back in the 70's, I remember that our department owned one TI SR-22 (hex, octal, decimal) desktop calculator.

Those things have to be pretty rare finds nowadays.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Back in the 70's, I remember that our department owned one TI SR-22 (hex, octal, decimal) desktop calculator.

Those things have to be pretty rare finds nowadays.
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Hehe. Funny you should mention that exact model. I have one here on my desk at work, next to the phone. It's a little worse for the wear and it's missing the keytop for the DEC key, but it works. I think I paid five bucks for it a couple years ago from a hamfest dealer.

-Ian
 
I can't recall--did the SR-22 use the Panaplex display?

At any rate, it came in handy. The system we were working with was bit-addressable and used 48 bit addresses. Hex was the working display radix (64 bit words). Getting from a bit address to a byte address or even a word or halfword address took some mental gymnastics otherwise.

Eventually, I picked up a TI Programmer, but the darned thing went belly-up after awhile (and it drank batteries for lunch), so I picked up an HP-16C, which I still have and use almost every day.
 
g4ugm said:
When I started my Maths degree (1972-76) there were two rooms of similar Boroughs machines, The second year we added a room of HP45s on security cables. We did one afternoon of Physics a week and the Physics guy couldn't understand why we wouldn't use slide rules to work out the answers to our experiments...

I learnt to use the IBM 1621 plotter (actually a re-badged Calcomp) and the Tektronics 4010 display scopes so could do least squares fit on the mainframe, but the Calculators were more accessible and quicker.
Click to expand...

I was looking at my Pickett 1010 a while back, still in it's black holster, and had to fool with it a good ten minutes just to multiply 2 times 2. Back in the 60's, our squadron man hour accounting specialist had the only nixie tube calculator on the carrier. Don't remember the brand name.
 
Agent Orange said:
I was looking at my Pickett 1010 a while back, still in it's black holster, and had to fool with it a good ten minutes just to multiply 2 times 2. Back in the 60's, our squadron man hour accounting specialist had the only nixie tube calculator on the carrier. Don't remember the brand name.
Click to expand...

I was the pround owner of a nice aluminum Pickett rule (with the greenish-yellow background to the scales). Lasted about 2 months before someone stole it. I replaced it with a good old Post Versalog bamboo rule. That was ordinary enough that no one bothered coveting it.

The Pickett had a lot more scales, but since I used the rule mostly for phasor math, it didn't really matter.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I was the pround owner of a nice aluminum Pickett rule (with the greenish-yellow background to the scales). Lasted about 2 months before someone stole it. I replaced it with a good old Post Versalog bamboo rule. That was ordinary enough that no one bothered coveting it.

The Pickett had a lot more scales, but since I used the rule mostly for phasor math, it didn't really matter.
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Back in my Navy days 50's, 60's, 70's, you had to have the Pickett 1010. All avaiation electronics schools in Millington, TN tought the Pickett. When you started Avionics Class "B" (Intermediate) the very first unit was a week on the Pickett 1010. There was a giant Pickett 1010 that hung over the blackboard and ran the entire width of the room. That should jog the memory of some of you old salts out there. Navy exams always had a penchant for testing your "square root" abilities. Most Navy tests were of the four question multiple choice ilk. Of course, time was factor. So it didn't take long to figure out that it was much easier to "square" the distractors as opposed to horsing it out on your Pickett. Chuck(G): Here's something to look at when you're not reenginnering your old IBM's - http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~aey/eecs206/lectures/phasor.pdf

BTW the first nixie tube test equipment that I ever used (1960-61) was an AN/FR-** frequency counter (can't remember the number) with 8 or so vertical columns. Just a little before the wrist watches with red crystals that you had to push the stem in to get the time. Wouldn't a nixie tube watch have been something?
 
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Agent Orange said:
Back in my Navy days 50's, 60's, 70's, you had to have the Pickett 1010. All avaiation electronics schools in Millington, TN tought the Pickett. When you started Avionics Class "B" (Intermediate) the very first unit was a week on the Pickett 1010. There was a giant Pickett 1010 that hung over the blackboard and ran the entire width of the room. That should jog the memory of some of you old salts out there. Navy exams always had a penchant for testing your "square root" abilities. Most Navy tests were of the four question multiple choice ilk. Of course, time was factor. So it didn't take long to figure out that it was much easier to "square" the distractors as opposed to horsing it out on your Pickett. Chuck(G): Here's something to look at when you're not reenginnering your old IBM's - http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~aey/eecs206/lectures/phasor.pdf

BTW the first nixie tube test equipment that I ever used (1960-61) was an AN/FR-** frequency counter (can't remember the number) with 8 or so vertical columns. Just a little before the wrist watches with red crystals that you had to push the stem in to get the time. Wouldn't a nixie tube watch have been something?
Click to expand...

I've looked at some web photos and I think it was the N4-ES that someone filched (lotsa scales). I remember one guy at work celebrating his divorce (his wife was the one with the money, so he got a very fat settlement) by buying the very new Pulsar watch. Expensive bugger for what it was, as I recall.

Do you remember the mechanical watches that attempted to cash in on the digital watch craze by displaying numbers in little windows?
 
Agent Orange said:
BTW the first nixie tube test equipment that I ever used (1960-61) was an AN/FR-** frequency counter (can't remember the number) with 8 or so vertical columns. Just a little before the wrist watches with red crystals that you had to push the stem in to get the time. Wouldn't a nixie tube watch have been something?
Click to expand...

Nixie watches do exist. They used to be sold here: http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/watch.html
 
Just goes to show you - be careful what you wish for because you just might get it!

Very clever.
 
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