Fakes

[Leviset]

A thought just crossed my mind (quite rare for my Pure Math addled Brain - but I’m convinced that continuing to program and collect vintage programmable calculators keeps my brain in top shape, but my wife (of 51 years) just sees clutter).
Have there or are there Far East clones/copies of programmable calculators?
I could see that it might be commercially (and illegal) viable to fake some modern calculators like HP Prime, TI-Nspire CX CAS, Casio Prizm & Classpads (have they?).
Also back in the 80s were there attempts to clone say the HP-41CX or TI-59s?
I’d like to get my hands on one just to tear it down and compare it to my real ones.
Dennis

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(04-02-2019 09:59 AM)Leviset Wrote:  A thought just crossed my mind (quite rare for my Pure Math addled Brain - but I’m convinced that continuing to program and collect vintage programmable calculators keeps my brain in top shape, but my wife (of 51 years) just sees clutter).
Have there or are there Far East clones/copies of programmable calculators?
I could see that it might be commercially (and illegal) viable to fake some modern calculators like HP Prime, TI-Nspire CX CAS, Casio Prizm & Classpads (have they?).
Also back in the 80s were there attempts to clone say the HP-41CX or TI-59s?
I’d like to get my hands on one just to tear it down and compare it to my real ones.
Dennis

After the turn of the century, we mostly had replicas of the HP 12C: in portrait mode (Aurora FN1000) and a closer, landscape, clone (Victor V12).
You can, however, clearly tell the differences from a real 12C, so not true knockoff/fake.
Swissmicros, while running the same ROM and mimicking proportions, graphics, colors, are a different story, and surely not priced as knockoffs.

I believe there are more fakes/replicas of Casio, Citizen et al. around.

[Lode]

> I believe there are more fakes/replicas of Casio, Citizen et al. around.

Yes indeed, very humoristic review of that one here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovsYv-b-wWI

[grsbanks]

(04-02-2019 11:52 AM)Lode Wrote:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovsYv-b-wWI

I remember seeing that a while back but in actual fact, the chances are that's actually a perfectly legitimate if poorly executed calculator. Don't forget that Casio do sell OEM PCBs (think HP10s)

[ijabbott]

There are also the unofficial "ghost runs" of HP 39gs (and other?) calculators that are commonly found on places such as AliExpress. They are easily spotted due to (a) being really cheap; (b) being sent in plain packaging; (c) not being warehoused in pristine condition so subject to gunk, scratches, etc.; (d) having no serial number labels.

[Eric Rechlin]

(04-02-2019 03:34 PM)ijabbott Wrote:  There are also the unofficial "ghost runs" of HP 39gs (and other?) calculators that are commonly found on places such as AliExpress. They are easily spotted due to (a) being really cheap; (b) being sent in plain packaging; (c) not being warehoused in pristine condition so subject to gunk, scratches, etc.; (d) having no serial number labels.

I wonder where they got the CPUs to make these. I thought the whole reason the 50g was discontinued was because the CPU was no longer available. Or were all these "ghost" 39gs calculators made 5+ years ago before the CPU went EOL?