Your First Handheld?

[Brad Barton]

Mine was a Texas Instruments SR-10. It was on sale for $60.00 and I talked my dad into buying if for me. Must've been 1973 or so. The next week it was down to $40 and a few weeks later discontinued. Ah the march of technology. My dad's face when he saw the price dropping --> D: It's long gone, but I picked up another example a few years back.

I had a few more TI's and Casio's until I broke my 3rd TI-55 in college and got sick of buying more crappy calculators. My buddy had a 41C, so I looked around and picked up a used 41CV about 1982 or so off a policeman who was using it to calculate speeds for drivers. He'd time them between two points, put it into the CV, and decide whether or not to give them a ticket.

Unfortunately for him the 41CV was too much voodoo for the court system at the time, and his tickets kept getting thrown out. He was forced to sell it, and his loss was my gain. I still have it after all these years, and it works flawlessly. Eat that TI!