This is an early 1970s calculator called Royal Digital IV. It’s a basic pocket four-function calculator whose designers sold their souls to the devil, all in the name of cost cutting.pic.twitter.com/NtP8W6nDrC
Writing a book about the history of keyboards: http://aresluna.org/shift-happens · Design manager @figmadesign · Typographer · Occasional speaker · He/him
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This is an early 1970s calculator called Royal Digital IV. It’s a basic pocket four-function calculator whose designers sold their souls to the devil, all in the name of cost cutting.pic.twitter.com/NtP8W6nDrC
Those flat keys are not keys at all. Royal Digital IV is equipped with a tethered stylus with a metal tip. You’re supposed to use it to touch an… exposed circuit board.pic.twitter.com/DE7N3IGWjm
Its creators had the audacity to call this grotesque invention “Magic,” showing a disconnect from reality that wouldn’t feel out of place in American politics of the last few years – since you’re basically scraping your way through basic math.pic.twitter.com/7J40sIhOcF
But it gets worse. There was also a Royal Digital III, budget-deprived even more – so much so it remains the sole calculator I know of that shows only FOUR DIGITS.pic.twitter.com/qTT6R26Bhw
Four digits is not enough, of course. And so, the poor, maligned keyboard had to help – a big plus “key” was cut in half, and another key was added. A scroll key, toggling between two halves of a number, was added.pic.twitter.com/GHnGkZOz1J
Imagine needing to drag your cheap, unpleasant plastic stylus, and scratch a rectangle of metal… just to SEE THE WHOLE RESULT. It’s beyond gruesome.
As with every proper beast, this one had many names: Royal Litton IC-90, Feiler FC-100. They all aged just about as well as you can imagine.pic.twitter.com/9PV1U9kVCA
Luckily, as far as I can tell, there was no Royal Digital II or Royal Digital I. It was only the less fortunate alternate universes that were graced with the calculators that I assume had two or even just ONE digit – and more “keys” you’d have to claw to move between.
In our reality, to add insult to injury, this was all in the early 1970s, the decade that gave us beam springs and Selectric II – lauded as possibly the most pleasant keyboards ever made, and ones whose design decisions inform keyboards even today.pic.twitter.com/P1Kcg4UOnL
I loved when I was in my oculist’s office and couldn’t see a thing in focus because of all the eye drops but could hear the frantic whirring of his electric typewriting machine. That lasted during my childhood and teen years until he got a computer and all the old noises muffled
Thanks for sharing! It’s a sensation something gone now, but still nostalgic to some.pic.twitter.com/7OpyogccTP
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