This week in super high prices on TAS

[Commie]

(11-10-2023 06:17 PM)robve Wrote:  Here is an interesting piece of history for sale:

Vintage Unicom 141PF Calculator - Busicom - Grey Intel C4004 and MCS-4 set

$20,000

Is the price justified? Perhaps it is. CALCUSEUM lists a 10/10 collector value.

- Rob

When you consider the effort that went into making this calculator then, I think, this price is justified. Actually, this will spur makers to start trying to design their own calculator with what they(we) have to hand like the 6502,Z80,AVR,PIC and 8051.There's nothing wrong with old electronic technology, it is perfectly usable today(hp15c ce). In fact, the latest electronic technology software support tools are generally out of our price range, e,g., ARM uC's compilers.
Well, I have been trying to design my own calculator using the 8051 and I can't seem to get the bcd floating point to work but I keep trying, I'm coding in assembler.