If NO IMAGES will be shown, use www.z80.eu/blog instead of blog.z80.eu

Please note also - THIS BLOG ENDS HERE WITH THE LAST ENTRY FROM NOVEMBER 9th 2021.

I have prepared a new blog with wordpress at https://vintagecomputing.info !!!

Thank you.

This calculator was a milestone in terms of programming capabilities, but not a success.
It was soon (1.5 years later, 1979) replaced with a similar calculator model but with a persistent memory - the TI-58C.
There was also a big brother with more memory and a magnetic stripe reader, the TI-59.
Both can be upgraded with special modules, e.g. a mathematics cartridge, or even custom roms for aviation.

Compared to other TI calculators of the same era, battery compartment is different (see the two latches/clips inside), battery pack BP-1A differs from comparable battery packs (e.g. for the TI-57) also.
Don't miss the "cleaning a TI-59" page from Marek Czeszek if you're a collector of these wonderful devices.

Friends of casual games will remember one of the most famous classics: Frogger.

For Super Nintendo (SNES), this game was selled only in the U.S. / Canada.
So how can you play it with an european PAL-based SNES ?
Easy, you need only an adapter, which reports a PAL cartridge to the SNES console, but make it possible to use another NTSC cartridge (see picture).

So one of the latest games for SNES, Frogger will run on a PAL SNES, too.
It's a game without any surprises (except one, see later), but graphics are done good enough even for modern days.


Anything else worth to be mentioned ? Yes, it's unbelievable, but this game does NOT save highscores persistent, every time you start the game after powered off and on, Highscores are resetted. Can be an empty/low battery. A bit disappointing.

This was a mixture between an older SR-51A and the later TI-55, it's inner electronics is more complex than comparable other TI models of the same decade.
My own one is working, but in a less desirable condition, around the power switch, painting is already gone. Also, I had to open it because the display was not fitted correctly (see second picture how to open).


How to open... somewhat tricky, also because the plastic material is a bit brittle.

Do you remember the time a scientific calculator was (very) expensive ?
I am not really a collector of these vintage calculators, but some are very interesting and also unique. The first mass production LED display based calculator was the Texas Instruments Datamath 2500, and luckily I own also one (which I bought at Ebay a few years ago, still not too expensive).
Later, many real famous models (also from HP) were sold, e.g. the TI-57, TI-58C and the Rolls Royce of these all, the TI-59 with magnetic stripe reader.
In the next time, I will introduce some here, starting with the TI-45, which was not too common also because it has a green VFD (Vacuum Fluorescent Display),

This one has basically a set of common scientific functions, but can't be programmed.
The calculator case is comparable to the cases of the TI-57/58/59 series.
For me, it's a very beautiful one (due to the green display).
Unfortunately most of the time you buy nowadays such a vintage calculator, the battery pack is destroyed by battery acid (from the NiCD cells).
For these who are looking for a replacement, take a look >here<.

A real interesting page is also >datamath.org<.

There will be something new I didn't expected... a new device was developed from Jim Drew (he already developed a lot of cool gadgets for the Commodores), which may supersede the Kryoflux device (you know it - the magic pcb/box which could read almost every floppy disk format).

It's much better than the Kryoflux:
It uses a 25ns capture resolution, where Kryoflux uses a 41.66ns resolution.
So, copies and images made with SuperCard Pro will be much more exact.

Take a look at his website to follow his news about it !

This is it what the new pcb looks like:


If it costs less than $100, it will be a success for sure.