top | item 40969472

(no title)

opencl | 1 year ago

No die shots but the Wikipedia articles of all things on the MK61 and MK52 are surprisingly thorough including photos of the PCBs, schematics, and the External Links sections contain most of the interesting articles I'm aware of about these.

They're quite interesting and quirky machines, definitely HP-inspired but unique in a lot of ways. Especially the MK52 with the built in EEPROM (though other than the EEPROM and connector for an external ROM it is functionally identical to the MK61). They're also still readily available and cheap on eBay if you want to play with one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_MK-61

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektronika_MK-52

discuss

order

pvg|1 year ago

Thanks, the one in your first Wikipedia link http://www.alfredklomp.com/technology/mk-61/ apparently also had a brief HN thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12632803

It seems odd there isn't more first-hand/primary-source-ish information about these - people who worked on ICBMs or nerve agents or whatnot have written about their experiences, you'd think calculator designers would pop up as well. Like, where is something like this for Soviet calculators https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39962737