"Cheap" Button Batteries: For years, I've been buying those little button batteries from Amazon. They usually arrive in an envelope from Brooklyn. No complaints. The battery in my 20+...

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

For years, I've been buying those little button batteries from Amazon. They usually arrive in an envelope from Brooklyn. No complaints. The battery in my 20+ year old calculator finally died, so I looked on Amazon for LR1130 batteries. I ordered ten for $3.49. Just out of curiosity, I looked for calculators, and I ordered one for $3.48. Amazing. The first small electronic calculator I saw cost $400. If I had ordered one, they would have sent me a nice briefcase, as well.

As I said, those cheap little batteries have never been a problem. They are always brand name, and I store them all for years before using them. The alternative would be driving into town and back (one hour) and paying that much for one battery.

alx Loc: NJ

Interestingly, I remember being in college when a friend of mine paid about $400 for one of the first 4 function electronic calculators for his "scientific" classes. No joking - all that money and the only way to get a square root was by multiplying guestimates by each other and then making adjustments and trying again until he got it right. No kidding, this was "state of the art". Of course, the slide rule was quicker if not accurate to the same number of decimal places.

BebuLamar

alx wrote:

Interestingly, I remember being in college when a friend of mine paid about $400 for one of the first 4 function electronic calculators for his "scientific" classes. No joking - all that money and the only way to get a square root was by multiplying guestimates by each other and then making adjustments and trying again until he got it right. No kidding, this was "state of the art". Of course, the slide rule was quicker if not accurate to the same number of decimal places.

Now a slide rule is more expensive.

alawry Loc: Timaru New Zealand

BebuLamar wrote:

Now a slide rule is more expensive.

And that's the comment of the day!

melismus Loc: Chesapeake Bay Country

I once ran a calculation of the cost per kilowatt-hour of the energy in button batteries. It ran to five or six figures.

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

BebuLamar wrote:

Now a slide rule is more expensive.

Wow - I still have several! Most people would not recognize a slide rule...

sb Loc: Florida's East Coast

alx wrote:

Interestingly, I remember being in college when a friend of mine paid about $400 for one of the first 4 function electronic calculators for his "scientific" classes. No joking - all that money and the only way to get a square root was by multiplying guestimates by each other and then making adjustments and trying again until he got it right. No kidding, this was "state of the art". Of course, the slide rule was quicker if not accurate to the same number of decimal places.

I went with my college advisor for a visit to his friend who worked at HP outside of Boston. His friend showed us their newest development - a 4-function calculator that could fit in a pocket and would only cost $400, and would be far more accurate than a slide-rule. These were assumed to be most useful for scientific and engineering work - anyone with good slide rule skills could achieve 3-place accuracy and could do far more than this 4-function calculator which could, after all, only add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

BebuLamar wrote:

Now a slide rule is more expensive.

I used a slide rule to figure students’ grades until the day I retired. For me at the time, it was quicker than a calculator.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

jerryc41 wrote:

For years, I've been buying those little button ba... (show quote)

It is often possible to buy batteries even name brand on Ebay for a good price.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

alx wrote:

Interestingly, I remember being in college when a friend of mine paid about $400 for one of the first 4 function electronic calculators for his "scientific" classes. No joking - all that money and the only way to get a square root was by multiplying guestimates by each other and then making adjustments and trying again until he got it right. No kidding, this was "state of the art". Of course, the slide rule was quicker if not accurate to the same number of decimal places.

I remember the 'Bomar Brain' in fact I had one of those 4 function calculators, whatever Sears sold at that time, $88 was a price break, one day sale, heck I could add faster than I could key punch back then but the multiply and divide was handy.

bamfordr Loc: Campbell CA

jerryc41 wrote:

For years, I've been buying those little button ba... (show quote)

When I started my brief time in the Navy in 1972, naval aviators were paying over $400 for (HP?) hand calculators with Polish notation because they were so much easier to use while flying than the circular slide rulers. They could hold (as I recall, 2 values in memory). By 1975, a calculator with similar capability was available on the supermarket end cap at checkout for $39.95.

walkurie Loc: East Stroudsburg, PA

In 1972 my parents gifted me an HP-35 for use in my physical chemistry class.It cost $400.00.
Came with a velcro closure belt loop case. Used rechargeable NiCads. Used it for years. Now cost for same is $10.
Regards
Gary

izzyuno

Yes I still have 3 or so slide rules from long ago - 60 years at least. Don't use them but still know how. worked with a gentleman who had a 60 inch slide rule that I thought was super great. A co-worker purchased a pocket size HP and, as I recall, paid in the neighborhood of $800 when it first came out.

Scouser Loc: British Columbia

I doubt if I could remember how to use a slide rule now, and I still have several. When taking exams towards the end of my engineering apprenticeship, early '60s, slide rules and pencils were the only things allowed in the room, no notes, no books, no memory-joggers of any sort.
However, more than once, I was able to achieve passes by being somewhat devious. I had one older slide rule that had a completely plain back, no graduations on it. With a sharp needle I had scratched in all the critical formulae, invisible at first glance. A quick wipe with a wet finger on the dirty desk, then a wipe across the formula required, and there in black and white, the solutions to my problems. OK, as long as the rule was placed face up on the desk, away from the prying eyes of the nosy examiners who patrolled the aisles.
Who knows, maybe I would have passed anyway, we will never know.

TonyBot

alx wrote:

Interestingly, I remember being in college when a friend of mine paid about $400 for one of the first 4 function electronic calculators for his "scientific" classes. No joking - all that money and the only way to get a square root was by multiplying guestimates by each other and then making adjustments and trying again until he got it right. No kidding, this was "state of the art". Of course, the slide rule was quicker if not accurate to the same number of decimal places.

... and I might have sold it to him!

$400.00.
Size of about 6 packs of cigarettes. A pound or pound-and-a-half. "Nixi" tubes for displaying the digits (all eight, count 'em, eight). About a four-hour 'on' time - or less, depending on how much you used it - with six to eight hours needed to recharge it. And, finally, for 'memory', we'd give you a pencil and pad of paper. as part of the deal!