BEGIN Japanology Calculators

[Dave Britten]

Apologies if this has been posted before; I didn't see anything with a quick search.

Here's an interesting little documentary my wife found about the evolution of calculators in Japan. There's not really any HP representation here, but I don't think they had much of a Japanese presence. Casio gets a lot of screen time, though. The speed typists are pretty impressive, as is the build quality of the keyboard on whatever model they're using.

http://youtu.be/1_GVkR0SITo

[Mark]

Hello Dave,
Thanks for the link, it's really interesting. The young woman's typing speed on her calculator is amazing ! It seems that Japanese people's ability to bring their skills to perfection is still there, whatever technology they use.
Marc

[PANAMATIK]

(05-20-2015 09:55 AM)Mark Wrote:  Hello Dave,
Thanks for the link, it's really interesting. The young woman's typing speed on her calculator is amazing ! It seems that Japanese people's ability to bring their skills to perfection is still there, whatever technology they use.
Marc

I think, that even a good OCR scanner would be slower than this young woman, but it would be cheaper. If she however were a pianist, she couldn't be replaced easily.

It is amazing, that the calculator buttons are working in this speed perfectly. It shows that a smartphone app can never replace a good calculator.

Bernhard

[Dave Britten]

(05-20-2015 11:15 AM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  

(05-20-2015 09:55 AM)Mark Wrote:  Hello Dave,
Thanks for the link, it's really interesting. The young woman's typing speed on her calculator is amazing ! It seems that Japanese people's ability to bring their skills to perfection is still there, whatever technology they use.
Marc

I think, that even a good OCR scanner would be slower than this young woman, but it would be cheaper. If she however were a pianist, she couldn't be replaced easily.

It is amazing, that the calculator buttons are working in this speed perfectly. It shows that a smartphone app can never replace a good calculator.

Bernhard

Yeah, the quality of the calculator really blew me away, the mechanical design for preventing misses, the electrical design dealing with bounce and rollover, and the software for handling the rollover and input speed.

[Thomas Radtke]

Casio calculators were incredibly fast. Back then I sold my TI-25 to get a fx-81p for its programmability, and was impressed how fast this calculator was and how many features there were. However, like with the Clamshells, the 81p had a tight and weak battery compartement that developed a crack after some months.

[Mark]

I second you all,
30 years ago I already realized how simple it was to have slow calculators miss number entry keystrokes, even without much training. These Casio four-bangers are optimized for Ninja-typers :-)
The mechanical aspects remind me of some of the best keyboards I encountered -best in that they allowed really fast typing : the Digital VT220's and the IBM PC-AT's (noisy but very efficient). It's a kind of alchemy involving key spring stiffness, key travel length, key spacing and so on... even the keycaps profile ! everything one doesn't find easily now. Those were the days :-)
Maybe some of you have seen this film from Alain Corneau based on Amelie Nothomb's novel "Fear and Trembling" where Fubuki's character performs impressively on her calculator ? I don't remember if it was a Casio....
Marc

[rprosperi]

(05-15-2015 11:47 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Apologies if this has been posted before; I didn't see anything with a quick search.

Here's an interesting little documentary my wife found about the evolution of calculators in Japan. There's not really any HP representation here, but I don't think they had much of a Japanese presence. Casio gets a lot of screen time, though. The speed typists are pretty impressive, as is the build quality of the keyboard on whatever model they're using.

http://youtu.be/1_GVkR0SITo

Thanks for the interesting link Dave.

When I worked at Sharp doing handhelds, I had the pleasure to meet both of the Sharp pioneers featured in the video, Dr. Asada and Mr. Hashimoto, quite a few times. They both come off rather meek in the video, but both were brilliant, impressive, and very interesting gentlemen, yet also quite warm and willing to discuss history, engineering, etc. Until this video though, I had no idea of their exact contributions in the evolution of Sharp calculators. I continue to live and learn, even about things very close to home.

[Jlouis]

Amazing, simply amazing.

Thanks for this link, I am sure I will watch this many, many times.

Cheers

JL