
Soviet Calculators History (1998) - erikbye
http://www.xnumber.com/xnumber/russian_calcs.htm
======
ruslan
I loved my MK 85 a lot! When I was at school in late 80s I used to store
complex physics and trigonometrics formulas in it as a BASIC program text.
Those days using calculators was allowed on exams so this little electronic
cheat-sheet saved my sole many times :-).

~~~
savoytruffle
A computational cobbler?

~~~
ruslan
If you mean the thing was not used for its intendent purpose, yes. But, who
uses cell phone to make calls nowadays ? ;-)

------
rdtsc
> the calculator combined not only the functions [+=] and [-=], but also the
> multiply-divide functions [X -:-].

Very interesting. It finally solved the mystery for me. My aunt was an
accountant and she had one of those in her office. I remember looking at the
keyboard and wondering how in the world you're supposed to divide and multiply
with a single button. [-=] seems to be something like "invert the previous
operation and then produce the result"

------
AGivant
It was a joke in Soviet Union that our Micro calculators are the biggest in
the world!

~~~
ruslan
Well, I admit that soviet calculators were of nearaly same size and same
functionality as their western siblings. Some, were very interesting from
engineering and use points.

------
avmich
Revers-engineering of B3-34 internals (in Russian):
[http://vak.ru/doku.php/proj/calculator/b3-34](http://vak.ru/doku.php/proj/calculator/b3-34)
. Some more:
[https://ramlamyammambam.livejournal.com/267234.html](https://ramlamyammambam.livejournal.com/267234.html)
.

------
aswanson
Max levchin stated he learned indirection in memory addressing because his mom
was assigned to work calculator programming in the USSR before the family fled
to the US in the early 90s. Amazing that a calculator had pointer features.

------
uniformlyrandom
I learned to code on MK-52. It was fairly cheap and accessible by the time i
have got my hands on it.

After programming (and patching) in hex codes, any other programming language
seems fairly simple.

And on the back of MK-52 there was a potentiometer you could use to overclock
it.

I did not know the trick of re-soildering the BRP jumper though.

Ah, good times.

~~~
RandomGuyDTB
Any hyperlinks about that overlocking? I have an MK-52 and didn't know
anything about that.

------
FillardMillmore
> In general, the first models of calculators had their own operational
> language, and the user had to learn the specific procedures related to each
> calculator. Let's take, for example, the C3-07, the first calculator of the
> Series "C" manufactured by the Leningrad factory "Svetlana."

Forgive the focus on tangential information, but I'm curious, was this factory
named after Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva? If so, it would seem a
little strange that the factory would remain in the '70s with this name long
after Khrushchev's secret speech and the subsequent de-Stalinization that took
place to deconstruct the influence of Stalin's cult of personality. I can't
seem to find any real info on the factory with a google search, but does
strike me as curious.

~~~
erikbye
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_\(company\))

~~~
FillardMillmore
D'oh!

I must have used too many search terms in my query. Thanks for providing the
link. Appears the company was founded in the late 1800s, so certainly not
named after Stalin's daughter.

------
thedudeabides5
_To calculate (20 - 8 + 7) it was necessary to press the following keys [C]
[2][0] [+ =] [8] [-=] [7] [+=]. Result: 5. To multiply the result, say by 3,
the calculation could be continued by pressing the keys: [X] [3] [+=]. A [K]
key was used for calculations with a constant._

When you design a product with a a committee of 27 engineers..

 _A group of 27 engineers were assigned to this complex problem. It was a huge
project which involved: producing the drawings, circuit and patterns
consisting of 144 thousand points required to fit a microprocessor with 3400
elements within a 5x5 mm crystal._

~~~
mNovak
Don't old HP scientific calculators have a similar syntax?

It's actually pretty logical; there's a running total, and you decide what to
do with the number you just typed in, after typing it. Costs an extra button
press to 'add' the first number to the total, I suppose.

~~~
7thaccount
No, HP calculators were more efficient it would seem with their RPN.

"20 ENTER 8 ENTER - 7 ENTER +"

So you push 20 onto the stack and then 8 on the stack. Then you hit the minus
key which returns 12 and puts that 12 on the stack, then you put 7 on the
stack and click the plus key to give you 19.

~~~
morcheeba
You only need the first ENTER to separate the numbers; the rest were optional:

"20 ENTER 8 - 7 +"

~~~
avmich
Not in general, I guess; 20 - 8 * 7 would be "20 ENTER 8 ENTER 7 * -". So if
you need to do first operation which is not the leftmost, you'd have to add
another "ENTER".

~~~
thedudeabides5
7 replies in from my (downvoted) original post and people are still arguing
about syntax.

I rest my case

