“That does not compute.” by rhoing

“That does not compute.”

“Danger, Will Robinson!” Loose keys!
We determined that this cheap calculator (probably free, actually) had died, so I opened it up out of curiosity. The circuits were on nothing more than a sheet of paper! When I turned it over, keys started falling out of their “cutouts” and this shot appealed to me much more than the shot I initially planned to take (the circuits). And to think: until it died, this throw-away calculator did everything my Texas Instruments SR-10 did in 1973 or 1974. Price of the SR-10 in 1973-74? US$115!

Too bad it doesn’t work: Might have been fun to reassemble it with the “×” and “÷” swapped and the “+” and “–” swapped…

A year ago (“Valentine’s Day Eve”): http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2011-02-13
Great concept for a photo
February 14th, 2012  
i like this photo too.
something about it makes it feel like a puzzle to be made.
February 14th, 2012  
Ha, the switch of keys coul dhave been an interesting twist to drive some poor person a bit crazy.
February 14th, 2012  
Kim
Fun shot...haha!
February 14th, 2012  
Oh now that looks like you can have so much fun with it :) awesome shot
February 14th, 2012  
Fun and well-executed shot. The Lost in Space quotations are a nice touch.
February 15th, 2012  
@furrylens Thanks, E.E.! (Did you ever do the e.e. cummings lower-case "thing"?) I think there should be a keyboard emoticon-type thing for the robot's waving "claws": "Warning! Warning!" I'm guessing you saw the show in reruns. Alas, I cannot say that I saw the shows only in reruns…
February 15th, 2012  
@rhoing - Yes, in reruns. And, no re: e.e. - lack of capitalization bugs the heck out of the editor in me :-)
February 16th, 2012  
@furrylens Yeah, I get the editor thing! I tried lower-casing my name in 7th grade because I didn't like how my "T" looked. The student teacher marked me down on a project I turned in and that was the end of that. But no one can make me use upper case in my 365 posts, right? ;)
February 16th, 2012  
@kamb Thank you, Karen! I had fun with it!

@glendq I made it into a puzzle for this post: http://365project.org/rhoing/365/2012-02-16. I'm pretty sure about the memory buttons over the number keys and everything else was pretty easy to figure out!

@digitalrn Now that I've put it back together, this is a possibility. Of course putting the numbers in the wrong places would be too obvious, but swapping the “×” and “÷” might be fun!

@kdei @michelleyoung Thank you, Kim & Shells! It was fun to have this post evolve away from what I initially had in mind!
February 16th, 2012  
now i know why you were looking up "lost in space" this week!!
February 17th, 2012  
What a fun shot, Thom! Glad you cheap calculator provided you with a cool shot!
February 19th, 2012  
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