Satolex Calcu-Pen LED calculator: Got one on 1st day of the New Year!

[jebem]

To celebrate the New Year, I managed to acquire a vintage (1975?) Japanese Satolex Calcu-Pen LED calculator in a pen from one of our local flea markets.

I had to pay a higher price than I was willing to spend, because there was another buyer looking to it as well.
So this time I had no chance to negotiate a better price.
Just payed what the seller asked and got it home.

I got just the calculator, as the seller didn't own the user guide nor the case anymore.

This is a heavyweight almost full metal jacket machine (the keys and inner body are made from plastic).
IMHO this is not a stylish product, although it shows how impressive was the 70's Japanese technology and build quality.








Current consumption:
The power supply uses one single 1.5Volt LR1 type "N" cell.
Being a LED calculator, one can only expect high current consumption.

My current readings gave me these figures:
Min 90mA (single "0" lit);
Max. 135mA (all LED's on).

Considering that other conventional LED calculators from the same era can consume about the same current but from a 3.6V battery pack (more than double voltage), I would say that Satolex did a excellent work to reduce the energy consumption to the minimum possible at the time.




Edited to add additional information from external references:

User guide copy from Katie Wasserman's site.

Restore information from MoHPC archives "What the heck, it is a calculator and I just restored it...." posted by Geoff Quickfall on 11 Feb 2008.