Quiz-What was the 1st desktop calc with Transcendental functions??

[zeno]

It was not the HP9100A....

Also, what month and year did it come out for public sale??

[Steve S]

I'm going to guess that it was the LOCI-1, issued by Wang Labs in the latter half of 1964...

[zeno]

Quote:

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I'm going to guess that it was the LOCI-1, issued by Wang Labs in the latter half of 1964...

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No, but good answer anyway...

The Wang LOCI-1 did not have both log functions and trig functions...I am referring to one that had log and Trig functions together.

[Kalevipoeg]

My guess is the soviet calculator EDVM

[zeno]

Quote:

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My guess is the soviet calculator EDVM

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Nope, that came out 3 years after the first one.

[GE]

Sooo, what was the expected answer to that question ?

I suspect you are not getting more tries at answering it.

[Steve S]

...Not so fast there, Zeno!

All you asked for was "transcendental functionS" (Cap "S" mine).

Since the LOCI-1 also did mutiplication and division by logs, I submit that it did, in fact, do transcendental functionS (...just not the ones we might usually think of...).

[Eric Smith]

Well, we give up. What's your answer?

[Ken C]

I did some programming on the Wang 500 series in 1971 specifically for the trancendential functions including trig and log. I seem to recall that most of the functions iterated only to 6 places and we needed at least 9. The little hp35 had the functions with enough precision, but was not programmable.

[Katie Wasserman]

Hmm... I've got a Wang 520 sitting here and it seems to be at least as accurate as the HP-35 for log and trig functions. It computes everything to 10 digits and compares quite well with the 32SII. (However, I have to admit that the inverse trig functions on this particular machine don't work -- there's a broken ROM wire in there somewhere.) It's my favorite (non-HP) calculator!

[Ken C]

Problem was not in the number of digits displayed but the actual accuracy in generating the trans functions. I just don't remember how the Wang stacked up.
Since the question of oldest desktop does not preclude analog computing or accuracy, then there are several slide rule candidates for the first trig/log calculator such as K&E's TrigLogLog which I still own [gr&d].

[Paul Dale]

Babbage's difference engine?

- Pauli

[Kalevipoeg]

or "Mirifici Logarithmorum canonis descriptio" by John Napier, 1614 ?