Jörg's TI-88 at precisely R$1,888.88

[Luiz C. Vieira (Brazil)]

Too many eights... Here it is 14:13PM.

Just a brief snapshot:
(click to enlarge}

Edited: 3 May 2012, 1:28 p.m.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

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Too many eights...

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Not too many yet. This would be better, using pi and Joerg's constant :

pi (1e3 sqrt(8) + 1) - pi^(-pi)

[Joerg Woerner]

Gerson, pi was already taken (Viktor T. Toth) and sqr(2) looks pretty "empty" on a 7-segment display with all the "1" and "4"s.

Did you notice the copy cat? Poor guy (Stefan) has to push the [CHS] or [+/-] key for every picture. What a waste of time for just one additional segment ;-))

Another TI site (myti.de):

Cheers,
Joerg

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

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pi was already taken (Viktor T. Toth) and sqr(2) looks pretty "empty" on a 7-segment display with all the "1" and "4"s.

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Twenty percent more lit segments. It makes quite sense and does justify your display signature!
For calculators on sale, all 8s is a better option. For exhibition I prefer showing the digits 0 through 9, as in the miniatures below:

^{The numbers are multiples of pi and are somehow related to the calculator model}

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Poor guy (Stefan) has to push the [CHS] or [+/-] key for every picture.

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Looks like he's forgotten do to it here:

Cheers,

Gerson.

[John W Kercheval]

Wow. This thing is going for big $$$., Any bidders on this forum??

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

Me, but way below this price.

[db (martinez, ca.)]

Hey Joerg; Please forgive the "woulda-shoulda-coulda question. I see on datamath that the 88 would have had a possible 3328 program steps or 416 data registers. More likely a combination of the two in real life. With one ram it was about equivalent to the 41cv (except for that dam equals key).

So the question is; was the memory limit because of what chips at the time would hold or was it like the 41, and that it couldn't address any more?

If the limit was in the addressing, they shoulda learned from the 41 and done better, like hp did on the 42.

[Joerg Woerner]

Dennis,

Difficult question - probably kind of a combination.
The RAM's used in the TI-59 date back to 1976 and stored 1920 bits (not Bytes, not Kilo, Mega or Giga), each. The TI-88 uses technology from 1981 and the chips hold roughly 5000 bits. Not too much according to Moore's Law.

We don't know too much about the CPU but it was a 4-bit design very similiar to the TI-55-II and with "just calculators" in mind, you don't provide mechanisms for huge address ranges.

I assume that for a keystroke programmable calculator 3,000 steps seemed to look enough. Don't forget that they worked in parallel on the CC-40 with 2k RAM expandable to 18k RAM (*). Maybe marketing wanted even some kind of line between the two products.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Joerg

(*) Yes... "the" CC-40 had more memory. But I received a few months ago the "original CC-40" and it had just 2k RAM (and a major design flaw, but that's another story).

[Palmer O. Hanson, Jr.]

The CC-40 memory could also be expanded with a plug-in cartridge, but at the cost of giving up the capability to use a solid state memory module.

Can you give me a few words about the design flaw.

[db (martinez, ca.)]

HP had design flaws in their flagship (the 41) too. Four i think
*the posts
*not being able to break into a rom by line number
*memory too small - but remember when we thought that 2.2k of constant memory was just e n d l e s s ?
*when they did expand the memory; it wouldn't allow mass storage of data files, which was the perfect use of ex mem.

Still, when one thinks how improbable something that good was in 1979; i can forgive them.
Too bad that TI didn't market the 88, but if they did; yours wouldn't be going for the price it is. By the end of the auction, you might be able to get another Land Rover - and the full time mechanic that comes with it ;-)

[Joerg Woerner]

Dennis,

it's not about a Land Rover this times, but at least the engine of my new car is very British ;-))

Cheers,

Joerg

[Joerg Woerner]

Palmer,

The cartridge connector was HP 41C style - just a piece of flexible PCB. Didn't work :-(

The CC-40 out in the field have a revised mechanical construction...

Regards, Joerg

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

e^(8 + 1/(100 + pi))

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

Too high for me. :-(

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Literally an exponential price! I wonder how many of them are still around.

[Joerg Woerner]

Germany won. Joerg

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

So I might have a chance to visit the auction winner to have a look at the calculator.

[Joerg Woerner]

Yes, I think so.

I'll match you soon. Other options in Europe are France and Portugal.

Joerg

[From Hong Kong]

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Germany won. Joerg

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Germany are my favourite national soccer team. I hope they will also win Euro 2012.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

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Germany won.

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Which means I now own 1/81,000,000th of it :-)

(No, I don't. Didn't even bid one Euro. Not interested in grey LCD stuff at all. Never was. But while this auction was running, I "won" an Aristo M27 first version without "CE" Key. Mint. Unused. Wouldn't trade this against the Ti88!)

Congratulatons for this great sale/buy!

Max

[Walter B]

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I "won" an Aristo M27 first version without "CE" Key. Mint. Unused.

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Hallo Max, herzlichen Glückwunsch! Congratulations - although I doubt this device being really 'unused'. ;-)

[Palmer O. Hanson, Jr.]

TI did send an engineering model of the CC-40 to me to evaluate before the machine was available to the public. I can't remember anything about the connection for the solid state software modules. It wouldn't have been an issue for me at the time as I didn't have any modules. When the printer became available I couldn't get it to work. I opened the engineering module and found that there was no wiring connected to the interface connector. I traded the engineering model in for one of the machines which had become available to the public at a local store. At that time I also selected the 18K memory option.

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

I've upgraded mine myself. The RAM sockets are on the board. I bought it when it was available in stores here in Germany but didn't use it very much. All calculator and pocket computer purchases after my TI-59 were just out of curiosity. Computers had already taken over their role.

[uhmgawa]

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Too high for me. :-(

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I find it difficult to dismiss the "chunk of plastic and metal"
characterization in light of that price.

Look at the bright side. At least you retained your disposable
cash for a calculator actually worth buying. ;)

[Marcus von Cube, Germany]

Or for a trip to Pauli. :-)

[Walter B]

That money may buy one :-)