Hewlett-Packard 9100 - Computer Calculator For Math And Science (1968)

HP 9100A Calculator marketing brochure
archive.compute...
History of the 9100A desktop calculator, 1968
www.hp.com/hpin...
Great 1970s early computer footage. Hewlett-Packard computer model 9100 Computing Calculator. Physics class uses computing calculator and X-Y plotter in class. Early educational application of computers.

[@opticalecho119]

Shit, I know teaching methods have advanced quite a bit but I wish that guy could’ve been my physics teacher. I like how he lectures.

[@daniellewis5302]

Thanks for posting this! I can't tell you how frustrating it is to stare at pictures of a neat old calculator, wondering what each part of it sounds like and what it looks like when it's being used. I found it funny when HP said the calculator and a wide range of accessories was available "at a very reasonable cost". I hope to someday own a 9100 and its accessories. Then maybe I can learn like Joy, Randy and Diane!

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

I first programmed one of these in 1969, in the Australian Army, to make Artillery Tables. My very first professional program!

[@Crazytesseract]

So you helped in making war, not peace?

[@MichaelKingsfordGray]

@@Crazytesseract Go away, anonymous bloody useless lying infant. Grow up, and use your real adult name, instead of cowering behind a phony infantile "name:.

[@richfiles]

I collect calculators, and have over a 100 different models... -But I don't have one of these yet.- UPDATE! I got a non functioning HP 9100A in late 2020! This, the Wang LOCI-2, and an ANITA MK8 are pretty much my holy grail of collecting! Fortunately, I have managed to snag half a dozen ANITA display/counter boards (1961), and an SCM Cogito 240SR (1965)!

[@radiorob7543]

richfiles I like calculators too, this is amazing, never seen it before.

[@gunthervanjauchensberg1338]

If you are still searching i got 2 of em prestine with every thing

[@vm2463]

Six years later, were you able to acquire this machine?

[@richfiles]

@@vm2463 Yes, actually! I picked up a broken HP 9100A a couple months ago. It was still pretty spendy, at over $800, but it's so nice to finally have it after a decade of looking! I DO hope to someday sit down with it and try to troubleshoot it. My hope is that the CRT is intact. There's a known failure mode that causes specific damage to certain transistors, that results from the deflection plates support rods being broken. The CRT uses electrostatic plates to deflect the beam, instead of an electromagnetic coil "yolk". They are supported by thin glass rods inside the picture tube. If they break, they will short to the high voltage, and this blows transistors in the deflection circuit and generally a few flip flop transistors ties to those. That"s the one bit of damage I _don't_ wanna see. Nearly anything else should be repairable, given enough time.

[@herrbonk3635]

Do you have the Olivetti calculator that predated this machine?

[@Isleif0]

I have one of those and it weights around 35 lbs and still works, amazing the fact that I had 14 years old when it was introduced it is made the oldest computing device I ever own. A truly predecessor of the personal computer.

[@rccinar]

@MichaelKingsfordGray i have one of them fully working one for sale

[@rccinar]

@MichaelKingsfordGray from turkey. i want 20.000 USD. Fully works and there is no broken part

[@rccinar]

@MichaelKingsfordGray 20 thousand U. S. dollars

[@rccinar]

@MichaelKingsfordGray Okay. Here is my email [e-mail]. Thank you.

[@AsBi1]

This is amazing, i love computers..

[@Isaac-gh5ku]

HP 9100. A huge scientific calculator and graphical calculator.

[@herrbonk3635]

And one of the first. Only Olivetti in Italy had a similar product earlier than HP.

[@vm2463]

It’s price in today’s dollars is $37000.00, and people of today complain about the cost of supercomputers (by standards of the time when it was filmed) such as HP Prime calculator or TI Nspire with capabilities of computer algebra system that lets you solve any equation in terms of x in one click.

[@Crazytesseract]

One day everyone will die, that's the truth. So let them complain. Why don't we think what happens after death?

[@kentslocum]

Less than $.05 per program? 😮 Well, I'm sold on this new-fangled classroom gadget! Time to toss out my slide rule!

[@Gexedd]

Con un profesor así, cualquiera aprende Física.

[@calculator.nostalgia]

Fantastic movie! I wish I would have been a student at those days :-)

[@renskebakker1522]

Thanks for posting this 😁👍🏼

[@hansepie]

That is a hell of a physics teacher in the days America was really great.

[@rodrigolindemberga]

Muito bom ver o progresso tecnológico. E uma geração de diamante onde com pouca ferramenta tecnológica comparado aos dias atuais, foram capazes de fazer grandes feitos. O conhecimento é realmente apaixonante! Obrigado por compartilhar.

[@Powerwagon563]

Twigonometwy? Cathode Way Tube? Cowwesponding? I did not know that Elmer Fudd's college education worked for HP! But seriously, management at HP needs to look at this video and ask themselves why they walked away from the education market and let Ti take over this market. They have damn near walked away from the calculator market if not for the hp12 business calculator and the group of enthusiasts that love using RPN.

[@melvynn11]

Powerwagon563 ha ha ha I was going to post something about Elmer Fudd, But thought better of it. Your post cracked me up!

[@hifijohn]

"Stwike" him, centurion, very "woughly."

[@Crazytesseract]

@@melvynn11 I am from Jupiter.

[@Berghemrrader]

This is the evolution of "the real 1st desktop computer" Olivetti La Programma 101. HP, after buy some Olivetti 101,pay royality to Olivetti for product the 9100.

[@tbonemaloneknowsitall]

I just came into possession of the monitor shown used with this calculator. Thing belongs in a museum. Anyone interested ?

[@plateshutoverlock]

11:36 I love those giant collars!

[@AlexPayneKU]

Супер! Супер! Супер! Вот так! Раньше калькуляторы и компьютеры были усилителями интеллекта, интенсифицировали учебные и творческие, научные, производственные процессы! А сейчас!? Сейчас мы не можем однозначно сказать, что это так! Компьютеров и интерактивных проекторов и досок стало гораздо больше (в каждом учебном кабинете, в каждом конференционном зале, актовом зале, на каждом рабочем месте). А приносят ли они сейчас пользу? Точнее, приносят ли они столько пользы, сколько приносили первые компьютеры? НЕТ! Компьютеры превратились из средства в цель! То есть сейчас многие процессы тормозятся в связи с тем, что специалист (врач, учёный, преподаватель) вынужден (обязан государством) взаимодействовать с компьютером тогда, когда это не нужно. Кроме того, мы стали слишком много времени проводить перед компьютером тогда, когда это не нужно (не общаемся с друзьями "в живую", а лишь посредством социальных сетей и т.д.). Так что, в некотором роде, компьютеры из великого блага превратились в большую проблему. А может мы их неправильно используем?...

[@vm2463]

Всё это решается в один ШАГ, не используй вычислитель для развлечений а используй его только для того для чего вычислитель был изначально сделан, тоесть для вычислений. А дружбанов просто вытаскивай на прогулки и категорически откажись от переписок в одноклассниках. В таком случае все встанет на свои места. Хотя должен заметить что жить станет на много скучнее.

[@Crazytesseract]

All those students are now over 70 years.

[@gizmo_3]

i wonder how they would respond if i mailed them about a concern now.

[@rambles2727]

+gizmogadget333 do it

[@melvynn11]

gizmogadget333 oh PLEASE do it and post their response!!! Haha 😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@theedspage]

How far we've come in 45 years; today almost everyone has a graphing calculator. (Apologizes for the last post, I hit the Done button too early. )

[@Isaac-gh5ku]

How many schools at the time use this... huge calculator?

[@CR7-u9j]

8:52-8:59

[@ivanvasilievich5763]

This young people may be in their 70s. And lecturer is probably passed away :(

[@mariekatherine5238]

That could have been me in this classroom. I’m 72. Yes, the prof. has passed by now.

[@melvynn11]

Amazing how far we have come. I wonder what it sold for??!!???? 🧐

[@cleansebob1]

$4,900

[@melvynn11]

@@cleansebob1 that’s a ton of $ for the day.

[@guillerminachavez2621]

8:52-8:59

[@comments2840]

My rough calculation seems to show this thing cost a whopping $7,020.

[@richfiles]

That sounds close enough. The calculator itself was $4900. The plotter was $2475, the printer was $975, and card reader was $490. Unfortunately, I dont have a reference for the cost of the monitor. All those accessories could definitely fill out the remainder of those costs, and then some. After the HP 9100B model (with 4416 bits of RAM, double the 9100A's 2208 bits of RAM) was released, the 9100A model dropped in price to $4400. There were rental and lease options too, which seems hilarious today. No idea if there were bundle discounts, etc.

[@mcwooley]

11:23 Is that big moniter vector or raster? What about the built in screen?

[@herrfriberger5]

+Myles Collins-Wooley Vector.This calculator/computer did not use *_any_* digital integrated circuits, so it had to use as "direct" methods as possible. Apart from a few _analog_ integrated circuits, semiconductors were all discrete transistors and diodes, for DTL/RTL-logic and ROM. The RAM (and some of the latches, IIRC) used both inductive and capacitive constructs involving PCB-layout as well as ferrites, coils and physical wiring.

[@richfiles]

@@herrfriberger5 yup, most of it was resistor-diode logic. Transistors were still expensive, so they were mostly reserved for flip flops, buffers and inverters, and as sense amplifiers for the ROM and RAM. The RAM was 2208 bits of core memory. Core memory was made from a matrix of wires woven through magnetic ferrule beads. There were two ROMs, the instruction ROM and the microcode ROM. The instruction ROM was a 1.8k 29-bit "rope memory", which has wires woven into a pattern by passing inside or outside magnetic ferrule rings, and reading the output from each ring's sense winding. The microcode ROM was 32k-bits (512 64-bit instructions) created by a 16 layer PC board with zigging and zagging circuit board trace patterns inductively coupled to sense circuit traces. It was an ingenious design that minimized component count, in a time period when normally, you needed a diode to represent every individual digital 1 value in a ROM. All the instructions to "draw" a vector number, and perform every other function of the machine, was coded into that memory, and none of it used chips at all! The monitor was just a duplication of the vector driver of the built in monitor, just scaled up and adapted for a larger magnetically deflected CRT. The HP 9100A originally sold for $4900 in 1968, and dropped to $4400 in 1969, after the 9100B was released, with double the RAM and an additional instruction. The printer was $975 The plotter was $2475 The card reader was $490 And unfortunately, I don't have a reference for the monitor's price.

[@isahacker]

en el minuto 00:13 creo que el de la izquierda es Steve Jobs. The left guy at 00:13 is Steave Jobs. Look at this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3iknaucjsSMgtE minute 04:39

[@Isaac-gh5ku]

Which people use this kind of calculator?

[@stretchmonster]

Can't watch it because of the high pitched noise.

[@theedspage]

T almost everyone has a graphing calculator.

[@CovjekXX]

"the percentage of the world's population being uneducated, is 46% " irony?

[@vrman4600]

wow 4 year old comment

[@leemontgomery7914]

“Computer Calculating Device”…😎😎😎 No RPN?!!!

[@UNIX32]

Can it divide by 0?

[@Crazytesseract]

No. It doesn't need to.

[@hifijohn]

you could probably buy a car for what this must have cost!

[@radiorob7543]

hifijohn Wiki says 5,000 1968 dollars, so ya, a decent one.

[@Micantropo78]

Yup. 5,000 $ in 1968 has the same buying power as 34,000 $ nowaday. So this calculator was pretty expensive.

[@jeffw1267]

+hifijohn More like three or four cars.

[@richfiles]

It was very often compared to the cost of a Cadillac back then. A Cadillac DeVille sedan was $5754 in 1968. This calculator (no accessories) was $4900. If you add the accessories, the printer was $975, the plotter $2475, the card reader $490, and I don't have info on the monitor's price.

[@weahhh63]

So if I got it right, it would be about $1400 for this.

[@richfiles]

More like $4900 for the calculator alone. Someone else calculated the accessories bump the cost to over $7k. Back then, that was typical, but this was state of the art technology. I don't have a cost for the monitor, but so did find the cost for the other accessories. The printer was $975, the plotter was $2475, and the card reader was $490. And that was in 1968 dollars. In that same year, you could buy a Cadillac Seville sedan for $5754. Let that sink in...

[@dkhl02]

Una copia de programa 101

[@crusader2.0_loading89]

Graphing calculator lol

[@kamjo79]

Wow, that guy is no Billy Mays. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[@themaritimegirl]

+Kam Jo They're promoting a business/education tool, not a lint brush. :P

[@dindog22]

seems a bit bulky

[@herrbonk3635]

Seems a bit arrogant to say. For scientists and engineers, it replaced days, weeks, even months of hard, tedious and error prone work in manual calculations with a few minutes or hours using this machine.

[@dindog22]

@@herrbonk3635 EFF OFF!

[@richfiles]

I mean, they built a fully programmable scientific graphing calculator/computer, and didn't use any digital microchips. Of course it's a bit on the bulky side. It's truly a marvel of engineering that they managed to fit it all in a machine this size in the first place!

[@herrbonk3635]

@@dindog22 Ignorance is bliss.