SR-60a manuals available
#1

I recently obtained a functional (well, except for the card reader, but I'm working on that) SR-60a calculator. The only English manuals I could find were those held by the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

No, you can't borrow them to scan, or even bring a battery powered scanner in and do it yourself. You can, however, give them money to do it for you.

So I did. You can download the manuals here.

#2

Contragulations on your find! Thank you for your contribution to get these manuals scanned, I hope to need them them some day. This is the only TI calculator I ever wanted, still looking for one....

#3

They did a nice job of it. I wasn't familiar with the SR-60a - it was interesting leafing through the manual. Thanks for making that available to the community.

Did you get any of those unusual magnetic cards with your find?

Bob

#4

Katie,

You never asked!

There was one on eBay ending yesterday evening for $760 including the memory expansion 2 (310 register, a few thousand program steps) and I placed a bid on it on behalf of a friend in Norway. Other than that I sold this year my three units off.

One of the units - a non-working one - is on its way as a parts donor to David.

Anything else from TI you are missing?

You can even ask for a TI-88 (but have your credit card loaded with two-and-a-half grands and one cent).

Regards,
Joerg

#5

David,

Tell him...

Joerg

#6

Darn! I've been wanting one of those also, to dump the ROMs and reverse-engineer for simulation.

#7

Quote:
They did a nice job of it. I wasn't familiar with the SR-60a - it was interesting leafing through the manual. Thanks for making that available to the community.

Did you get any of those unusual magnetic cards with your find?

Bob


No, but Joerg's been kind enough to include a few with his donor SR-60. My machine has the same gummy wheel problem we've all experienced with our HP card readers, except that the gummy wheel is about 1" in diameter. The card reader seems to run, but I don't want to try any cards until I do something about the reader's wheel, and I'll probably practice on the donor machine first...

#8

Now I'll know who I'm bidding against! :)

#9

Not me! I don't have time to follow TAS, nor the money to bid competitively there.

#10

Somebody load a unit to Eric so we get a nice emulator.....

I've no TI's so I can't.


- Pauli

#11

I wouldn't want to borrow one right away, as I'm too busy currently. But it would be nice to borrow one eventually.

I've started work on reverse-engineering the TI-58/59, and much of that work will be applicable to the SR-60. (As well as the SR-50, SR-51, SR-52, and SR-56.)

One of the key things that needs to be investigated is how the TMC0501E (used in the TI-58/59 and SR-60) differs from the TMC0501.

#12

I'll be happy to arrange this with Eric, especially after I receive the nonworking unit for Joerg. I could bring it to the conference...

#13

Thanks for the manual. It was a blast looking through it. My second programming job involved the SR-60. Bear with me a few moments here.

For a few months in 1976 I worked for an office equipment dealer here on Long Island. They sold (among other things) TI calculators. I was 18, between high school and college and very naive, meaning that I worked cheap but didn't realize *how* cheap. (I think I was making about $150/week part time.)

I lusted after HP calculators, but I had a brand-new SR-52, still not too shabby. So I had a head start on the SR-60.

I worked on three programs during my time there. Two were payroll programs, one for the small-memory SR-60, one for the large memory version.

The third program waas the most interesting. It was done for a swimming pool store. The idea was that the customer would test his pool, come into the store, and the calculator would tell him what chemicals to use to fix his problems. The program would ask things like: What is the pH of the pool? What is the chlorine reading? Is there algae in the pool? (I suppose the volume of the pool also had to be entered.) The program would then figure out how much of what chemicals were needed. This would be printed out on the little 20-column printer, complete with brand names, so as to leave nothing to doubt. Of course, all of the named chemicals were what the dealer was stocking.

The interesting part of the calculation was that using one chemical might change the amount of the others, so the interactions had to be taken into account. All of the formulas were supplied by the dealer. I wish I had a listing of the program, but unfortunately thermal paper isn't an archival medium :( All my SR-60 printouts faded to nothing in a couple of years.

The one thing I remember about working with the SR-60 was how sensitive to static it was. Just walking across the carpeted room and touching the calculator could generate a spark that could blow out circuitry. In particular, the $700 memory expansion boards were very susceptable to static damage! We soon learned to "de-zap" ourselves by touching the metal desk leg before touching the calculator.

This is a bit long but I hope you enjoyed hearing about using the SR-60.

#14

Quote:
No, but Joerg's been kind enough to include a few with his donor SR-60....

That's good news - nice to know there will be more fully functional units in the wild. Good luck with the restoration.

Regards,
Bob

Edited: 19 June 2011, 9:21 p.m.

#15

The static sensitivity thing makes me very nervous. Dare I drag this monster to HHC?

#16

Well, I'd wrap it in antistatic material (foil or black foam or big pink envelope or whatever, and de-zap yourself before use, just in case.

But it's your call.

BTW, does anyone know what the difference is between the SR-60 and SR-60A? Is it just the memory size or are there other functional differences? Thanks.

Edited: 26 June 2011, 10:30 p.m.

#17

From what I've read, a firmware update was necessary to support the larger memory. That's all I know.



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