Who has a sinclair scientific programmable?

[Johnh]

This Sinclair was an interesting curiosity. It was a tempting teaser of a scientific programmable, but it was never quite the right thing at the right time and didn't quite have enough capability to be actually very useful.

In '75/'76, if you wanted a calc for science, maths or engineering at a low price, there was a good selection of very capable non-programmables that would be much more useful tools for the money (many of which would still be perfectly useful today).

Or if you wanted programming, for a price still within reach of many, an HP25 was a vastly more capable and reliable device and became a real classic.

[EdS2]

Looks like Sinclair's Scientific Programmable was $80 in 1975. I would be surprised if you could buy any other scientific programmable quite so cheaply - and that was Sinclair's general tactic, to be cheap rather than very capable.

A table of introduction dates, prices by year, and number of steps might be very interesting.

[Steve Simpkin]

(12-06-2024 09:08 AM)EdS2 Wrote:  Looks like Sinclair's Scientific Programmable was $80 in 1975. I would be surprised if you could buy any other scientific programmable quite so cheaply - and that was Sinclair's general tactic, to be cheap rather than very capable.

A table of introduction dates, prices by year, and number of steps might be very interesting.

While this is not quite what you asked for, the following article starting on page 29 of the May 1976 issue of Popular Electronics magazine is an interesting read.
HERE ARE THE NEW PROGRAMMABLE CALCULATORS!
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archiv...976-05.pdf

[AnnoyedOne]

(12-05-2024 09:05 PM)Johnh Wrote:  ...never quite the right thing at the right time and didn't quite have enough capability to be actually very useful.

That was my opinion of Sinclair product at the time. I saw their ads in amateur electronics magazines of the era all the time.

Low cost but also "cheap".

That said some Sinclair calculators are listed for high prices on eBay these days.

A1

[johanw]

(12-06-2024 04:08 PM)AnnoyedOne Wrote:  That was my opinion of Sinclair product at the time. I saw their ads in amateur electronics magazines of the era all the time.

Low cost but also "cheap".

Not only their calculators, compare the - in the UK popular - Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer with others from the same age like the Commodore Vic20 or 64. Uncomfortable wobbly rubber keypad, but cheap. Used memory chips that were rejected because half of it was defect but the other half was cheap.

It was the general philosophy of the company. Today we would call it a low-end device, just as with phones.

[AnnoyedOne]

(12-06-2024 04:32 PM)johanw Wrote:  Not only their calculators...

Agreed. Which is why I wrote "products" and not "calculators".

I knew a guy (from the UK and who I'd known since HS) that bought a ZX80 and raved about it. Whatever. I had a Motorola 6809 based home computer that blew the ZX80 out of the water.

(12-06-2024 04:32 PM)johanw Wrote:  It was the general philosophy of the company.

Exactly. You got what you paid for.

A1

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(12-06-2024 04:38 PM)AnnoyedOne Wrote:  Exactly. You got what you paid for.

I would rather say: You got what you could afford. For me, at the time, that was the Sinclair ZX81. Bought as kit to save even more money. It taught me a lot of things, from making your own peripherals (keyboard, printer interface, EPROM programmer, "hi-res" graphics addition, telephone dialer, ...) to programming in Z80 machine language. And no internet yet where you can now find instructional videos on how to do these things!
A few years later, I almost bought a Sinclair QL, but the awful proprietary tape units that it had instead of floppy drives were the dealbreaker for me.

Still, I think I owe a lot to Sir Clive!

Regards
Max

[AnnoyedOne]

(12-06-2024 06:05 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  ...programming in Z80 machine language

Yeah. The Z80 was much less expensive and came out sooner. A "super" 8080 in effect.

As it turned out I wrote a lot more 6809 assembler code (from scratch) vs Z80 (mostly maintenance).

I think that a whole generation of EE's used Z80's because they knew nothing else.

A1

[EdS2]

(12-06-2024 01:06 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  

(12-06-2024 09:08 AM)EdS2 Wrote:  Looks like Sinclair's Scientific Programmable was $80 in 1975. I would be surprised if you could buy any other scientific programmable quite so cheaply - and that was Sinclair's general tactic, to be cheap rather than very capable.

A table of introduction dates, prices by year, and number of steps might be very interesting.

While this is not quite what you asked for, the following article starting on page 29 of the May 1976 issue of Popular Electronics magazine is an interesting read.
HERE ARE THE NEW PROGRAMMABLE CALCULATORS!
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archiv...976-05.pdf

Excellent find! Article by Forrest Mims. Says there are 10 programmables on the market, and has a photo showing 9 of them. Distinguishes elementary, intermediate (conditional branching), and fully programmable (subroutines). In the elementary category we find
Litronix Model 2290 ($29.95) 10 steps, algebraic
Sinclair Scientific Programmable ($79.95) 24 steps, RPN, scientific
Novus Model 4515 ($79.95) 100 steps, RPN, scientific
Novus Model 4525 ($99.95) 100 steps, algebraic, business
Novus Model 6035 ($99.95) 100 steps, algebraic, statistical

[Josef]

I have Sinclair Scientific Programmable. A nice history of the origins of the operating system.

[AnnoyedOne]

(12-06-2024 01:06 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  HERE ARE THE NEW PROGRAMMABLE CALCULATORS!
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archiv...976-05.pdf

Wow. That brings back memories! I bought/read Practical Electronics (and others) back then. I lusted after the Novus calculators, which were advertised, but I couldn't afford them.

A1

PS: In the PDF there also full-page ads for the Sinclair Cambridge calculator (US$24.95 assembled!) and the Sinclair digital watch kit (US$29.95).

[Johnh]

That really is a fascinating old magazine, from a time when audio projects, cb radio, computers, calculators and general diy gadgets were all for one type of target (nerd) demographic in a single publication!

My friends and I in the UK spent quite a lot of pocket-money on Sinclair products, and were grateful that we could. The most popular was the basic Sinclair Cambridge calculator, a neat LED four function, 8 digit machine. It was out while we were doing O-levels, age 14 to 16. Calcs weren't yet allowed in exams, just slide-rules and tables. So we had to remember to keep track of the powers of 10 by hand, and know how to look up trig functions etc. So this most basic, but very accessible and nicely designed little calc was very useful for classwork and homework, without eroding these necessary skills.

I also had a Scientific one, famous for what it squeezed in but not quite enough to do what it tried to provide. But a couple years later, I pulled out the board of my basic Cambridge and wired all the keys to a DIY TTL circuit that made it step through the Mastermind code breaking game. A fun project, and it worked, but there were better ways to do that even then.

I also bought Sinclair's circuit books, and some of his amplifier modules, half of which did not blow up.

[EdS2]

Upthread we have a few mentions of the slightly later, much smaller, and more capable Sinclair Cambridge Programmable. (And far cheaper - only £16 - see here)

Sinclair produced a four volume set of programs for the machine - see here for a scan:
https://archive.org/details/sinclair-cam...am-library

Sinclair Cambridge Programmable from 1975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc9bE0cJZFY

[Josef]

Today, I watched the movie Micro Man, which tells the history of Sinclair and Acorn Computer. It was interesting; I had never heard of the movie before.