Facit 1131J Nixie Tube Calculator
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- čas přidán 13. 09. 2024
- Tour of the Facit 1131J Nixie tube calculator, from approx. 1971. This machine is a weird combo of 1960's and 1970's technology, with lots of pretty Nixie tubes and LSI integrated circuits from Rockwell. It actually is a modified Sharp Compet machine. I finally tease out what the 5/4 key does at the end of the video...
This model post-dates the 1123/1124 machines, see:
www.cs.ubc.ca/~...
and:
www.johnwolff.i...
that had lower level integration 74xx circuitry, but a similar keyboard and Nixie display, but pre-dates the later high-level integration machines with VFD displays like the 1185:
www.curta.com.a...
So it has a curious mix of rather modern LSI circuitry and very vintage Nixie tubes into it. A very solidly built calculator with a great vintage Nixie display, a mysterious 5/4 key and whimsical overflow indications. Mystery gets solved at the end of the video...
Thank you for the video,
I somehow found a 1117J version in the trash and rescued it, it is in fantastic shape, you just have to really work the power cable in and give it a full 20 seconds after switching it on to power up.
The only differences I can spot is that mine uses old school LED numbers, has the 5/4 as a switch instead of a push button, there are no indicator lamps (or room for them) on the multiply and divide keys, it only goes up to 4 decimals via another sliding switch and the display has 3 free-sliding plastic tabs you can use to mark the thousand/million/billion commas.
I find you also have to really do a fast jab on the keys to prevent a double press.
Such a lovely machine.
You are a wonderful story teller and narrator
I had one of those! :) I got it from my dads work when they got rid of it. What memories.
5/4 key is for rounding up or down. 5 for rounding up and 4 for rounding down.
Thanks. Yes indeed, I eventually found out and actually demonstrate it towards the end of the video.
ha - i was actually just going to guess that ... funny thanks
WOW! Even better than the other model! I'd love to have one!!!!
I've got a massive transistorized behemoth of a Sharp calculator from 1969 which uses the exact same keyboard module as your Facit there, and i can confirm that it does indeed have neon lamps beneath the multiply and divide keys. Looks pretty neat in operation, doesn't serve much of a practical purpose.
+eatabagofhell Thanks for the note and confirmation!
We have an 1125. It has a 16 digit display, but there's some kind of electronic glitch now. When I turn it on and clear it out, all the digits light up 7s and 9s at the same time, no matter what. If I try to do any calculations at all, it goes into error. This started happening suddenly, maybe 10 years ago.
I was hoping the 5/4 would be the mad hatter mode.
Something about that procedure for the constant division/multiplication makes no sense to me. You store the number in memory, recall it, and then clear it. So now the number is on the display, just as it was when you started... is that really how it's intended to work? Because that seems insane to me! Bad UX :P
I have one of these, I gave one away. Do you know the approximate value on one of these? I'm just curious. Thanks!!
where do you get such beautiful machines? ;)
I just bought one of these but it's missing the power supply. Do you know what type of cord it should be?
This operation of this machine's functions by this simple keypad seem to complex & tedious to make a lot of tabulations easy..
2:33 That key tells the machine to round off the very last digit, no truncation
How did you get the little slider knobs off? I have a facit 1132 with a stuck keyboard but I can't try to repair it because those knobs seem to be glued to the sliders
I don't remember, I think I just pulled them off. I would very much doubt these are glued, but they might be holding on pretty tight after all this time.
I have two predecessors to this machine, the Sharp Compet 16 from 1967 and the Facit 1122 from 1966 (a huge machine, almost as big as the Friden EC130). Both are fixed point with optional rounding and both have illuminated multiply and divide keys. See the Facit 1122 in action here: czcams.com/video/FKhe9065MPc/video.html