Can We Get a Cable Channel Interested in Vintage Calculators?

[Namir]

Hi All,

I would like to see one of the major cable channels, like History r Discovery, make a special episode about vintage calculators and current ones. It would be nice to interview HP and TI designers, and folks like Richard Nelson and other prominent ex-PPC members.

Does anyone have contact information for cable channels that may be interested?

Namir

[Ethan Conner]

Actually contacting a producer would be a good first step.

[db (martinez, ca.)]

Quote:

---

Can We Get a Cable Channel Interested in Vintage Calculators?

---

Has anyone here even managed to interest his (or her) significant other or children in vintage calculators? I couldn't get other old surveyors to look at them if i didn't keep good beer in the fridge.

On the other hand, they occasionally ask me to fix theirs.

[Katie Wasserman]

No. I think interest in vintage calculations (or any calculator for that mater) is genetic. Maybe when I sequence my DNA they'll find that gene :)

Edited: 5 June 2012, 10:17 p.m.

[Eddie W. Shore]

Quote:

---

No. I think interest in vintage calculations (or any calculator for that mater) is genetic. Maybe when I sequence my DNA they'll find that gene :)

---

I may have not inhereited that gene from my parents, but I sure happy to have it. :)

[Jeff Johnson]

Hey, since we're the backbone of the economy, laboring away and paying all those middle-class income taxes, maybe we could get our calculator addiction gene classified as a disease and go on government assistance and get some of our tax money back :o))

[Egan Ford]

Quote:

---

... Maybe when I sequence my DNA they'll find that gene :)

---

Ah yes, the rare "Wright" gene.

[Palmer O. Hanson, Jr.]

Quote:

---

Has anyone here even managed to interest his (or her) significant other or children in vintage calculators? I couldn't get other old surveyors to look at them if i didn't keep good beer in the fridge.

---

When I tell people that I used to work with that I have collected almost two hundred slide rules and over seven hundred calculators the most frequent response that I get is "Why?" Sometimes I get the response that they still have the one they used at work, couldn't bring themselves to throw it away, but I could make their wives happy by taking it off their hands and out of their house.

I admit that I am a keeper and a saver. Who else still has

* Their children's books from the 1930's

* Their Boy Scout manual from the 1940's

* Their Ohlsson and Rice 23 model aircraft engine from the 1940's

* Two years of Model Airplane News and Air Trails from the 1940's

* Their father's algebra and geometry books from the early 1900's

And so on, on and on. Katie is correct. There really is a gene ...

[Dave Shaffer (Arizona)]

Quote:

---

And so on, on and on. Katie is correct. There really is a gene ...

---

I agree - I got it from my Father. My wife and mom occasionally exchange knowing glances while rolling their eyes!

[Allen]

Perhaps HP-Mania could be an interesting tangent for that A&E series on hoarders?

[Katie Wasserman]

I'd like to see a segment on How It's Made film the current HP calculator production line(s) in China.

[Nick R]

That might turn out to be a truly scary show.

[Katie Wasserman]

I'm sure.

[uhmgawa]

Quote:

---

That might turn out to be a truly scary show.

---

I don't think that to necessarily be true.
It really depends on the degree of OEM involvement and control
over the manufacturing process.

For an enlightening if not entertaining account of a roughly
analogous device, have a look here:
Making the Chumby

[Nick R]

I often watch 'How It's Made' episodes that were done in North American manufacturing plants. Perhaps it would be interesting to have a few filmed in Chinese factories and see their assembly processes from a different slant.

[db (martinez, ca.)]

Allen; Since i don't have a TV, I've never seen hoarders but i just looked up the site and there's a guy that has about a hundred old computers. He wants to fix up a bunch to sell but also wants to keep one of each type for his own collection.

This hits awfully close to home.

[LHH]

I'm the one in our family who (they claim) has at least one of everything. That's far from the truth but even 0.001% of everything is too much and I might be in or near that ballpark. But these days, with everything under the sun becoming a "collectable", I may still get the last laugh!

Edited: 6 June 2012, 12:09 a.m.

[Matt Agajanian]

Honestly, I think that the 'Hoarders' idea may put a bad light on HP calculator collectors. Even from the name, it already implies that collectors have an obsessive/compulsive disposition with no sense of balance or moderation. I think a show focused on technological or historical significance would present calculator collecting in a more positive light. Especially if Dave Hicks, Richard Nelson, Joerg Woerner, Gene Wright or someone else here is featured on the show.

In terms of how significant the HP-35's development and release is in the history of calculators as well as its impact would make for more a relevant topic for 'Modern Marvels' or 'How It's Made.' Also, the HP-65 would also be a good springboard for a program segment on Programmable Calculators. To see how we've come from the HP-65 to the 41 to the 28/48/RPL and beyond would definitely be a progression of technical innovation worth a full hour on one of those shows.

Edited: 6 June 2012, 11:48 p.m.

[Hal Bitton in Boise]

Take the markings off of an HP35 and let PTV's History Detective take a crack at it.

[Matt Agajanian]

Hi all

It seems to me that the PERFECT show which should produce an episode on Vintage Calculators is History Channel's 'Modern Marvels.'

[Alexander Oestert]

Geir Isene once presented his collection on Norwegian TV if I recall correctly. You might find the link in the archives or get it from him.

[Namir]

I am interested to see if anyone in this forum has a contact with a cable channel that I can approach with the idea of doing an episode about calculators. Maybe the show can attend one of the HHC conferences too!!!! That will be really nice to show the fellowship we have that has been ongoing since the late 70s!!!

Namir

[Alexander Oestert]

Do you think any station might be interested in producing a show that has all potential viewers appearing IN the show??? ;-)

[Namir]

The trick is to make the program very interesting to the general viewers. Otherwise, videos on YouTube like the ones Eric Rechlin posted for HHC2011 will suffice.

[W. Bruce Maguire II]

Alexander:

Quote:

---

Do you think any station might be interested in producing a show that has all potential viewers appearing IN the show???

---

Your post was *just* what I was thinking!

;-)

Bruce.

[Bill (Smithville, NJ)]

Namir,

A couple of site that might be of help to you:

Collectors - TV show from Australia:

Collectors

Web site devoted to TV shows about Antiques, etc:

Antique Online

A few years ago, I saw a program that had a segment on people who collect Antique/Historic radios. But I don't remember the name of the program.

Bill

Edited: 6 June 2012, 11:08 a.m.

[Keith Midson]

Collectors (Australia) did a segment of a guy who collects Soviet calculators a few years ago - I have a DVD of this segment, which did show an HP65 right near the end. I lived next door to one of the producers of this show and he we discussed having my collection on there - a production crew even came in to look at my collection at the office, but unfortunately the show was axed last year before they filmed anything.

Cheers, Keith

[David Tellet]

I think the only way that the Discovery or History channel would be interested is if they thought the calculators were haunted. Or that Hitler owned a calculator store in Argentina after the war...and that the calculators were used to develop advanced weapons...and that the store was haunted.

Don't get me wrong, it would be great to see a well done, informative show about this, but I just don't see that any American network would do it.

[Les Wright]

... Sterling Cooper Draper whoever-now-that-Pryce-is-dead goes after the prestigious HP 9100 account. In meetings, it turns out that an HP marketing executive was actually a wartime friend of the real Don Draper. Don is exposed as the identity thief and fraud he is, and much crisis ensues personally and professionally for all touched by this.

I can't think of any other way to make calculators interesting to a general audience...

[Bob Patton]

Not highly relevant, but a History channel episode of Pawn Stars featured a Curta calculator. The shop owner popped it out of its case and did a calculation. Oh sure! Happens all the time.

[Johnny Bjoern Rasmussen]

It have allready happened here in western Denmark as a local TV station came around to make an episode (in danish language) in a series about collecting strange stuff (as if collecting calculators are strange - come on, what are ya talking about?): Link

Gee I look goofy and nerdy.

Cheers!

Johnny

Edited: 7 June 2012, 3:22 a.m.

[hpnut]

Go Johhny go!

thanks for sharing, I watched it with great interest although I don't understand Danish.

I wondered how many Danish viewers switched channels when this show was on? ;-)

hpnut in Malaysia

p.s. what is that watch you're wearing? a Suunto?

[jonathan G harris]

I remember reading (on this site mostly) about the early days of the HP-35 and how it revolutionized how computations were performed in a myraid of professions versus the Slide Rule. How early calculators were kept out of enemy hands during the Cold War and the reasons behind that (that part would interest me alot) and how in the earlier days of NASA such calculators were deemed Mission Critical. As a nerdy engineer who just adores scientific/tech history (and history in general) that would be something really cool to watch and entertaining enough to keep some kids interested...

[Johnny Bjoern Rasmussen]

Thanks hpnut in Malaysia.

The watch I am wearing in the episode (as always) in my good old Timex Data Link 150 ;-) The day it will break down I simply wouldn't know what to do...

Johnny

[Mark Scheuern]

Quote:

---

Go Johhny go!

thanks for sharing, I watched it with great interest although I don't understand Danish.

I wondered how many Danish viewers switched channels when this show was on? ;-)

hpnut in Malaysia

p.s. what is that watch you're wearing? a Suunto?

---

So did I. I found myself turning up the volume which, it turns out, doesn't help me understand Danish any better.

And I noticed the watch, too. Do vintage HP collecting and watch collecting go together?

[Eddie W. Shore]

Quote:

---

Hi All,

I would like to see one of the major cable channels, like History r Discovery, make a special episode about vintage calculators and current ones. It would be nice to interview HP and TI designers, and folks like Richard Nelson and other prominent ex-PPC members.

Does anyone have contact information for cable channels that may be interested?

Namir

---

YES! YES! YES! This will be must see TV!

[Mark Scheuern]

Quote:

---

YES! YES! YES! This will be must see TV!

---

I'd love that, too, but unless someone claims the technology came from the saucer crash at Roswell, I suspect Discovery, The History Channel, and the like will have little interest these days.

[Donald Williams]

Cable channels are only interested in Kim Kardashian and Snooky.

Don't ask me who they are. I don't know.

I guess if you could get them to narrate you would have a block buster show.

Edited: 7 June 2012, 4:34 p.m.

[LHH]

I think all this would do is raise the prices of these old things to totally unreasonable levels (and they're already too high IMO). Those of us who actually enjoy using these old calcs would be priced out of the market.

[Donald Williams]

Quote:

---

I think all this would do is raise the prices of these old things to totally unreasonable levels (and they're already too high IMO). Those of us who actually enjoy using these old calcs would be priced out of the market.

---

That must mean I am way ahead of the rest of you. I got priced out of the market 9 years ago.

[LHH]

Not really, it's already too rich for my blood now too! Luckily I have a few I picked up years ago but there are a few more I would love to have if they weren't so expensive. I guess it's great for a few collectors but it makes no sense to spend so much money for these old calculators, many of which are quirky or underpowered by today's standards. It's rather sad that many end up in boxes as "investments" instead of being used. Same is true for guitars and so many other things these days.