Texas Instruments TI-30/TI-30 (1976)
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Texas Instruments TI-30 (1976)
- Type: Semi-Algebraic Electronic Calculator
- Size: 6 x 3 inches / 15 x 8 cm
- Serial/Lot number: 4470521/LTA4676
- Date of Manufacture: November 1976
With box and instruction booklet. The finest calculator available on an eighth-grader's budget in the 1970's. TI has gone through over a dozen models of calculator called the TI-30 (I recently saw three different such in a drug store in March 2005) but this is the original.
The very oldest TI-30s had a bug: If you keyed [ 0 ] [INV] [tan], the calculator would lock up. The model I got in eighth grade had this bug, and the packaging included a warning slip explaining the occurrance (and a workaround, if you couldn't figure out the arctangent of zero for yourself). I'd be interested to know whether anyone has a copy from that original series.
My original 30 lasted until my junior year of high school when I destroyed it by getting metal bits into the innards (I had lost the red lens earlier on). I upgraded to the TI-57 at that time.
I enjoy watching the TI-30 "think" its way through a calculation; it would flicker various segments in the least significant digit. (Can anyone tell me whether this was a bug, delcared feature or intended feature?) Quicktime movie of a TI-30 thinking about a cosine operation (1.5 MB)
Be sure and check out the "features and specifications" listed on the back of the box. The TI-30 featured 48 calculator functions. Says so right there. They even add them up for you. Why? Well, shucks, the best slide rule you could still get at the time only had 30 scales. They had to compete somehow!
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