Texas Instruments TI-30. The calculator that broke the price barrier. 

I got a TI-30 for my senior year of high school. (1978-79) and saved hard to a TI-59 for college (CS and EE) Great machines.

I picked up a TI-30 just because I loved the display. Thanks for putting the history together here.

"The disposable scientific calculator, I'm not sure if that's progress or a sure sign of the apocalypse" Lmao, though its true

I had this model. I inherited it from my older brother. Makes me feel nostalgic.

I had the TI-33, back in the day, which looked similar, but it had 3 memories; a feature which seemed awesome at the time and which was very useful. It lasted for years.

my sister gave me one in my sophomore year(1981). it saved my ass. thanks buddy

I have Ti 30, I bought it in December 1978, it still works, I have the invoice, I'm from Brazil.

Very informative, thanks for sharing.

The TI-30's legacy lives on today making it very close to 50 years of existence in one form or another

I still own a TI-30.

It seems that you need a calculator: 2400/385 = 6.2 113/25 = 4.52

TI-30 falling down the way aaa

CALCULATOR - TI 30 TI 30 WELCOME TO THE SHOW

I’ve just acquired a Fullers calculator cylindrical slide rule. This was the equivalent of a scientific calculator in it today but they made the same device for almost 100 years with only some minor changes in materials. Anyone familiar with the first one would have no problem using the last one ever made.

Imagine that : When the computer breaks down, you just throw it away !!!

Nice analysis and history of the scientific, pocket-size calculators

I had One in High school in 1979-1981

I had one of those TI-30 LED calculators at high school. There were cheaper scientific calculators available, e.g. although the Sinclair Scientific was $100 when it was released in 1974, it had dropped below the price of the TI-30 when the TI calculator was released in 1976. Not really comparable though with the Sinclair Scientific being much more compromised (and tiny in comparison to the TI-30).

Excellent little video. Thank you. As a calculator fan (in the HP camp,) I use on my phone Droid48 which actually legally uses the HP ROM. I've found most calculators of the phone variety essentially broken as they use floating point (and lie) instead of BCD which all true calculators use. I'm curious as you are a fellow calculator nerd as to what calculator you have on your phone? It's called "Calculator" and I've failed to find a match to the icon on Google play. Who is the author?

I still have one.

ITS TIME FOR THE

Ma première machine à calculé

This major price reduction was due to a break through in manufacturing technology. Something like that 400 dollar HP calculator had about 5 or 6 micro processors inside. Ti-30 was able to put nearly ALL calculator functions on ONE CHIP ! Thus, were able to mass produce their calculator for far, far less money then the H.P.

Noticed a typo in the description: "when Texas Instruments introduced the HP-30"

itft

Great singer

They were cheap because Texas Instruments did not pay us employees much. We had a joke that Ti stood for Tiny Income.