Soviet Era Calculators

[Sleazey]

Check out this web site with a collection of calculators (handheld and desktop) from the the Soviet era, all made by the state firm "Elektronika"

Soviet era calculators

[Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)]

Thanks a lot!

I felt as if I am entering in a room I never saw before in my own house. Kinda 'Know you, never seen you'.

Cheers.

[DougT]

There are a surprising number of Soviet RPN calculators vintage HP fans might be interested in, and even with shipping they're fairly inexpensive to acquire. I especially like my MK-61. '80s RPN calculators like the MK-61, -54, and -52 conveniently use AA batteries, unlike the older ones that often need odd, large "land mine" nicads.

[Frank Boehm (Germany)]

You'd better check with

http://www.taswegian.com/MOSCOW/soviet.html

;)

[Tom (UK)]

Some of the keyboard layouts look the same as some Commodore and Sharp models. I know there was some (unofficial?) tie up behind the iron curtain but I'm sure the resourceful poeple of the USSR could reverse engineer some of the western models. Anyone know about them?

I love the nixie tube ones, and the one that looks exactly like a 70's clock radio with an extra keyboard on the top, it even seems to be displaying 23:59 as the time.

e.g.

'b3-19m' looks very much like a commodore
'mk64' and 'mk51' looks like a Sharp (EL506?)
'mk106' case looks like it has a psion clamshell like case
'mk85' looks like an old sharp PC(1206??)
I'd love to see a close up of the 'mk61'
The double display and keyboard of the 'mk87' looks fab! (HP clamshell inspired?)

[Frank Boehm (Germany)]

a lot of models are "inspired" by western models - or plain stolen (compare the B3-04 to a Sharp EL-805)

then, there are rumours, that the Soviets purchased a/the manufacturing line of General Instruments to make the MK23/MK37/MK57

other than that, it's interesting to see the sometimes "odd" functions (unusual for western calcs) on the scientific calculators

[GE]

The MK85 looks exactly like the Casio PB100, but has of course the cyrillic characters, and internally it is very different. The BASIC is also different, while very much inspired by the Casio's.

Nice examples of human ingenuity, these were often designed to be 'bad assembly-proof'.

[Steve Borowsky]

Quote:

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these were often designed to be 'bad assembly-proof'.

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They didn't allow bad assembly language? Now that's impressive!!

[Sleazey]

Thanks for that link. That also is a very interesting site.

EnglishRussia.com has lots of interesting pictures of Russia today, and yesterday.

[Gerry Schultz]

If you liked that link, try this one:

http://www.taswegian.com/MOSCOW/soviet.html

The Museum of Soviet Calculators.

Gerry