This feels like a the physical embodiment of bloatware

@Biffo1262

5 жыл бұрын

It was actually very handy when using a plotter. Messing about with the on screen calculator was too much if a hindrance.

@F0nkyNinja

4 жыл бұрын

like a the

@aidancommenting

4 жыл бұрын

@@F0nkyNinja What?

@F0nkyNinja

4 жыл бұрын

@@aidancommenting Was critizising Thesinfultictac's grammar

@aidancommenting

4 жыл бұрын

@@F0nkyNinja Ohh. Didn't see that the first time

I'm sitting inside as it's pouring rain, sipping coffee with my lunch and watching LGR. Life is perfect at this moment.

@squidud

3 жыл бұрын

Only way to make it better would be to be accompanied by the warm sound of the crt of a Macintosh :)

@kengiskhan6337

3 жыл бұрын

Coziness approved

@alistairblaire6001

3 жыл бұрын

I've been binge watching LGR videos for the past few days

@kengiskhan6337

3 жыл бұрын

@@alistairblaire6001 as for me it's been months now

@TehPwnographer

2 жыл бұрын

Little moments like that make life worth living

The concept is so delightfully absurd, not just from the exact perspectives you describe, but because a calculator is just a very simple, single-purpose computer. "Yo dawg, I hear you like computing. So I got you this tiny computer to stick to your computer, so you can compute while you compute."

@EssenceofPureFlavor

5 жыл бұрын

Haha

@jasondoe2596

5 жыл бұрын

Well, considering how often I grab my smartphone even while sitting in front of my PC, because it makes certain things faster/easier... I don't find the concept to be completely absurd. Not _this thing_ though, with its tiny screen and microscopic, rubbery buttons. I'm convinced it could be done *much* better, e.g. by using a much bigger screen and intercepting the keyboard's actual numpad (with a toggle switch). Of course, that would necessitate some additional custom circuitry :) *edit:* By intercepting the actual signal, you could also have a button to "autotype" the computed result. Hell, that could be even faster to use than today's software calculators, because you lose time to copy the result!

@EvilishDem0nic8732WhatItDo

5 жыл бұрын

....now as you commute

@NathanBLawrence

5 жыл бұрын

This is exactly what I came here to write.

@NathanBLawrence

5 жыл бұрын

Jason Doe Actually, that’s a solid point I hadn’t considered. This isn’t so different from how I always have TI calculator handy at my desk for really intensive math while I’m doing an unrelated task. Sometimes, that little mode switch between computer and other computing device is conducive to good thinking.

I worked at the Shack from 1990-1992. Never sold a single one of these. Sold the hell out of Remote Controlled cars and Police Scanners.

@robertgaines-tulsa

5 жыл бұрын

I still got my late dad's RadioShack scanner from the mid-'90s. I rarely use it. I use to use it as a weather radio until I got an automatic digital one. The last time I used it was to tune into the frequency that controls the weather sirens in the area. Our Whelen sirens use a touchtone code likely left over from when they were upgraded back in the mid-1980s. It's kind of interesting to hear the touchtones break the radio silence briefly and hear the sirens go off just after. The city has been upgrading to the new 2910s, but they seem to use the same touchtone codes.

The battery today costs the same ($5.99) as the device did back then. That's how they get ya!

@ShinoSarna

5 жыл бұрын

To be fair, 6 bucks in 92 is equivalent to 11 bucks nowadays.

@ZealKingdom

5 жыл бұрын

@@ShinoSarna That's how they get ya!

@rlarsen76

5 жыл бұрын

Or you could buy 10 of them for less than a dollar on Ebay.

@didierthesuperstar

5 жыл бұрын

+rlarsen76 That's how ya get them!

@bassistguy

5 жыл бұрын

They do the same with inkjet printers today. Replacement ink costs as much, if not more than the freaking printer!

LGR. Where even the filler episodes are worth watching.

@lukasperuzovic1429

5 жыл бұрын

The truth as been spoken!!!

@YukonHexsun

5 жыл бұрын

This is filler? I thought this was just the show, honestly.

@RaposaCadela

5 жыл бұрын

And re-watching, too

Now lets make a calculator that attaches to your smart phone.

@Rakmarok

5 жыл бұрын

This calculator + duct tape = profit.

@KryptLynx

5 жыл бұрын

Just found a calculator case for iPhone on Aliexpress

@robertgaines-tulsa

5 жыл бұрын

**SMACK** I like your comment though...

@DragonGrafx-16

5 жыл бұрын

I need a calculator that attaches to my calculator because reasons...

@MetamorphosisYa

5 жыл бұрын

Boy have I got news for you

The display is fine. You just have a model that was supposed to be sold to Predators rather than humans. Shit like this is why Radioshack went out of business.

There are some vintage mechanical keyboards out there with built-in calculators. Focus in particular was known for doing this. They would have a small LCD display on the top bezel and used the numpad keys for calculator functions. The user would enter calculator mode and then those numpad inputs would go straight to the built-in calculator rather than the computer the keyboard was connected to. Of course there would be a standard mode too in which it would work like a normal numpad. Some of the more advanced models were even capable of letting you paste the calculator output into an application on your PC.

Only you could make such an interesting video about an OEM calculator to stick on keyboards! Rock on man! (typing this on my Model M)

@Hydr8Man

5 жыл бұрын

Well said.

@LordMarlle

5 жыл бұрын

I came to write exactly that. Quality channel. The timing of the vo at 4:46 is perfect

Thank you Clint, for giving small things like this a big stage like yours. Your sonor voice, your nonchalant phrasing and yet exiting narrative style always keeps me bound to your lips and will now softly drag my german mind into a land of dream where I rest and indulge myself on modern/retro computer poetry. I salute you!

Totally remember these. My buddy worked at RadioShack for years and believe it or not, some of these stayed in the stock room for years as well. I was reminded of this just a couple years ago when purchasing a Logitech MX5500 which despite being a modern keyboard, still has a built-in calculator that you can use independently from the computer. Will this concept continue to live on?

@jerrell1169

5 жыл бұрын

Marky Shaw They’re kinda useful but definitely difficult to use since most have very small buttons

@thetechconspiracy2

5 жыл бұрын

I know you can buy external numpads that double as a calculator, even allowing you to send the result to the computer

@go7cha459

5 жыл бұрын

@TerryMcKean

5 жыл бұрын

Wow, Marky... that Logitech keyboard's pretty awesome... download01.logitech.com/support/24540.1.0.jpg

@TerryMcKean

5 жыл бұрын

I found a pic of the same model of keyboard that I'm using right now, HP's 5308 Internet/Multimedia ... a vintage 'pretty awesome' keyboard. ... no calculator, though... oh well... :-) i.ebayimg.com/images/g/hp0AAOSw8w1X-Wzu/s-l1600.jpg

I've seen a lot of times that "LCD missing segments", usually the LCD crystal is connected to the data lines through a conductive rubber band, usually this is a bad contact in that rubber band. If this uses it, then sepparating the LCD and the data lines from the rubber band, cleaning it and repositioning it on place solves the problem. Also a conductive Z-axis double-sided tape for modern LCD's can solve the problem, something like this: www.adafruit.com/product/1656

@Walczyk

5 жыл бұрын

This^^^ was just going to say this but in a less helpful way. Good post!

@drgusman

5 жыл бұрын

Ty ^^

@jones_i2135

5 жыл бұрын

Just put a sticky note on the ribbon in place where it joins the PCB and try to iron it with an iron for a 20 seconds. That's all. It should work as new.

@drgusman

5 жыл бұрын

That's on the PCB side if the LCD has a ribbon, I was talking on the LCD side, where the crystal is connected to the ribbon or PCB. Something like this: www.alibaba.com/product-detail/LCD-Zebra-Rubber-Strip-Silicone-Conductive_60569689583.html

@cyrex686

5 жыл бұрын

Soldering iron on the contacts sometimes works

If my parents had a computer when I was growing up they would definitely have had this. Their collection of calculators was staggering

Someone working on a DOS computer and with a desk space problem would have gotten use out of this.

As soon as I saw this title, I realized how much I miss Radio Shack....

@Josechpruiz

5 жыл бұрын

We still have RadioShack in Latin America. For some reason

@noah_hill

5 жыл бұрын

From wht I remember it was an Indian guy trying to sell me $100 zip cars

@stridermt2k

5 жыл бұрын

indeed. It had a place.

@bassistguy

5 жыл бұрын

I've seen "authorized dealers", but it's definitely not the same.

@davidharrison5979

5 жыл бұрын

Jose Ruiz Radio Shack sold off its international operations in the 70s, so your Latin American ones are likely a separate company that was licenses the name. We had those in Canada, too, until the local operation got bought by Circuit City in an attempt to expand here. Radio Shack objected to their competitor owning stores under the Radio Shack name, so the Canadian stores were forced to change. They became "The Source by Circuit City", until Circuit City went under. Then they just became "The Source", because the "by”part would have given away that the stores are now owned by the hated monopoly telco, with a primary focus on pushing their cell phone plans instead of the competitions. They still carry some gadgetry but nothing like the old Radio Shack days.

That would be nice to have today still! Having the cal app on a PC is cumbersome with swapping apps back and forth, and a stand alone calc takes up room.

@luxembourger

5 жыл бұрын

I use the "always on top"-function, so the app stays in the foreground.

@the-shork

5 жыл бұрын

I mean phones have calculator apps, too, but I get what you're saying

@draketungsten74

5 жыл бұрын

@@the-shork I still prefer my ~30 yr old TI-35 plus to my smartphone calculator app.

@the-shork

5 жыл бұрын

@@draketungsten74 Oh definitely, I think anyone who ever used a calculator for more complex math prefers those. I personally use the search (in Windows and macOS it'll tell you the result of a calculation you type in) or WolframAlpha if I need something more complicated, because I can never find my calculator when I need it

@Chaos89P

5 жыл бұрын

Zoning Violation Maybe they forgot that alt-tabbing is a more or less universal thing? I don't know if it is a thing on Macs, but it is a thing on the Linux distros I have used (and have actually alt-tabbed on).

I love the style of this calculator!

The only reason I would think this calculator was useful was in DOS non-multitask days when office people were doing office things with their DOS lotus suites and whatnot, this probably served a chunk of 80's not-that-PC-savvy people that had to double check a calculation in their spreadsheet or calculate and check a number for their documents.

@FindecanorNotGmail

5 жыл бұрын

Personally, I would prefer a desktop calculator over having to use the one in MS Windows 3.1.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

5 жыл бұрын

SumeaBizarro Almost right, except your accusation of "not tech savvy" . It was the computer lacking the function, not the user. Back in those days, I tried multiple pop-up keyboard add-ons and found them lacking, including a classic version of Sidekick, PC tools and at least one independent creation. It's different now with multitasking OSes, even on modern phones like the Nokia Communicators.

@oschiri66

5 жыл бұрын

For that purpose we used a TSR called Borland "SideKick".

@bugbug1599

5 жыл бұрын

Same! I dislike having too much cluttering up my screen. If it's more than a calculation or two I usually prefer to pull out my phone or a regular old calculator. Honestly having one attached to my keyboard doesn't seem like that bad of an idea.

Kinda reminds me of the mouse pads that have built-in calculators, which I've seen for sale back in the 90s and maybe even 2000s.

@uniwasamistake6334

5 жыл бұрын

Ducky still sells one.

That battery measurement thing is awesome. Never seen one before.

A brief LGR thing is better than no LGR thing! Lol. Another awesome video ☺️👍🏼

@wozlaser

5 жыл бұрын

and super thorough! loved seeing it on all the keyboards as they shrank through the years

Speaking of keyboard add-ons, there was that primitive "joystick" back in the day that was attached on the arrow keys...

Anyone else noticed that the original price of calculator and the current price for the battery is the same - 5,99$. Coincidence?

I have seen cheap calculators inside mousepads. More than one. So it seems there actually was a market for calculators that didn't take up more deskspace.

A calculator. To put on the keyboard. Of what is essentially a calculation device.

@troytakesphotos

5 жыл бұрын

thedungeondelver A VERY EXPENSIVE calculation device.

@qwertykeyboard5901

5 жыл бұрын

i use calculators when using calculators...

@rasz

5 жыл бұрын

Maybe it was for early Pentium processor owners :-)

@TheWolfkit

5 жыл бұрын

Above the _numeric keypad_, in its box art.

@orosee

5 жыл бұрын

When this came out, a lot of computers were still running DOS. So no access to Windows 3.1 calculator. On the other hand, everyone had a huge desktop calculator (at least the engineers and accounting) in front of them. I believe I tried Windows first in 1994, and our office took quite a while longer before we went GUI. There's a small window in which this thing might have been useful.

billions of videos about sega, nintendo, atari and sony - hell Im glad you put up unfamiliar stuff like this. Enjoying it every time

3:19 Subtle...

@kilrahvp

5 жыл бұрын

A Player 69 indeed, hadn't noticed 😆 too bad the Calc's screen is borked, works better on segments...

@qallincha

5 жыл бұрын

Well done!

@ChrisDreher

5 жыл бұрын

Good catch!

@deadmetalbr

5 жыл бұрын

It's just not the same...

@fuelvolts

5 жыл бұрын

But why put the 5 first? You didn't need to write it "upside-down". 80085 would work just fine.

I actually had one of these back in the day. I actually used it all the time, because back then I was running DOS and we didn't have task-switching like we do now. Eventually, it died an untimely death just like yours.

Thank you for the fleeting bit of entertainment, Clint! I love seeing add-ons like this.

Thanks Clint, I was fleetingly entertained, just as you promised!

This little video made me smile. Thanks!

Man that’s tiny and cute I LOVE IT!

@anthonyjohnson9088

5 жыл бұрын

That's what she said...lololololololol 😅 😅 😅

@unlimitedbitsgaming

5 жыл бұрын

@@anthonyjohnson9088 DAMNIT, YOU BEAT ME TO IT!

@anthonyjohnson9088

5 жыл бұрын

@@unlimitedbitsgaming Lolololololol 😂 😂 😂 unfortunately I know from experience...lololololololol 😅

Oh wow there was one of these in a drawer at my dad’s workplace when I was a kid in the early 90s. I legitimately had no idea it fit on a keyboard- I was allowed to play with it so I wouldn’t waste the paper on his big accounting one!

The screen issue is caused by a loose connection between the flat cable and the LCD itself. There is a small ribbon thingy that connect the flat cable to the LCD screen, maybe it's just misaligned or a little bit loose

@mrlithium69

5 жыл бұрын

upvote so he sees

Yup! I had some of these. In fact, I had at least a dozen of them! (Not all at once, mind you lol) Fact is, they were just given to me, they'd break in a month, got another one, and then I switched schools and never got another, oh well, no big loss to me. Thanks for yet another !Nostalgia trip!

Clint, the things you do to sate my fleeting entertainment never ceases to amaze. Keep up the lovely work you amazing man!

Getting little oddities to learn about are some of my favorite videos from you.

Really enjoying this golden age of LGR creativity, may it long continue (until your next well deserved vacation!)

This was exceptionally funny. I like your writing style. Thanks for this.

Awesome nostalgia with this one. Thank you!

keep it up with these style of video i actually really liked this :)

Hey Mr LGR, Ive been subbed now for a few years. Keep up the great work. Im really enjoying your videos.

The red background is fantastic, really seems like a commercial from the time or something.

Man are we kindred spirits. I love that you took the time to research the history of a thing NOBODY remembers, that most likely was a gift most people threw away before even using it. The 80s and 90s go deep with stuff like this and its all interesting to me, no matter how small, worthless or forgotten. Kudos.

Thanks Clint, fun video today

You know, when it comes to those button cell batteries, I was always amazed that they were cheap enough to come with cheap kids' toys, yet cost a fortune when you actually try to buy one yourself.

2:30 Never saw a battery slider like this. Ingenious.

Ha ha, that's a really good comedic, and rather informative video you've got there! It's crazy what computer products sold in the 1990's; people seemingly bought just about anything advertised for computer use back then!

The intro was such a nice touch!

I had one of these on my 386. I had totally forgotten about it. Thanks for the video.

Had one of these in the day, on a Tandy 1000. It actually was kinda useful on a DOS machine since switching tasks meant exiting your application.

I love when stuff like this has the original RadioShack price tag on it still 😁

As you were showing smaller and smaller keyboard, i was really hoping that you would put the calculator on a keyboard so small it would fall on the desk... And you did ! Thank you very much for that :)

It's a blessing, to make a review about a plain old broken calculator that is indeed interesting. Only you can do that

I had one of these, very helpful when you were in DOS and needed to do some simple math.

Your delivery is impeccable. You make the boring, interesting. The mundane, unique. The keyboard calculator, a calculator... you stick to your keyboard.

The best THING on KZread!

It kind of makes sense in the 80s when single-tasking OSes were the norm, so bringing up a calculator on your computer meant closing the application you were currently using, but yeah a "regular" desktop calculator would probably make a lot more sense in most cases. I *could* see these being useful in computer labs though where there's not typically a lot of spare desk space since it would fit in the "spare" space above the keyboard.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

5 жыл бұрын

MrRadar Consider actual working rooms with as many people crammed in as possible. School isn't life, just more fun.

Dude, this may have been one of your best videos. I love how you got all existential at the end. (note: The Barbie Carnival Detective Game is still the greatest ever.)

Wow, that thing seems really convenient and space saving. It's independent from the PC and can improve multitasking. Just as a normal poundland calculator taped to your keyboard.

For those thinking that this was useful in days of single user DOS, it probably was not as useful as you believe. Many DOS assistant-type TSR programs, like Borland's Sidekick, had a calculator function. Other TSR apps cloned scientific or financial calculators ("Comp. Chron." TSR episode shows an HP-12C clone TSR app). Programs like Sidekick were incredibly popular top sellers. Other programs were made specifically to work with word processing and spreadsheet software. Numbers from app could go right into 1-2-3 spreadsheet, for example. This was probably most useful for basic calculations when computer was off and you did not feel like getting a real calculator out of a drawer or waiting for your stupid slow DOS/Windows PC to boot. Computers back then took longer than 10 seconds to boot. A lot more. A real calculator, even a tiny junky one, was much more convenient than turning on a PC.

@BrianGreigRWD

5 жыл бұрын

jeff Not sure about sidekick but some of those TSRs were serious memory hogs.

@francesconicoletti2547

5 жыл бұрын

A TSR was for computer geeks. I imagine this thing would be used by the boss’s secretary who just had her typewriter replaced with a pc running a word processor.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

5 жыл бұрын

Brian Greig Sidekick(R) ate more than 140K on a 640K PC. Many programs could barely run with the machine effectively reduced from 640 back to the original 512 K. Later had to have multiple boot profiles when some network stacks ate too much RAM, while others lacked needed features.

@francesconicoletti2547

5 жыл бұрын

John Francis Doe also remember that not all pcs were optioned out to 640k. That was the huge expesive limit.

@4jp

5 жыл бұрын

PIMs, as they called them, were really popular. Borland alone moved over 1 million units of Sidekick in its first few years and continued selling it until Windows market saturation made such products unnecessary. The bigger point was that single-user single-task DOS had options that could do more. Sure, it may have crashed your system or made it impossible to input anything, but they have other features as well. Like those tip calculators from Seinfeld.

You just talked for over 5 minutes about a broken 90s calculator, and I loved every second of it. From that angle you're kinda continuing the spirit of CGR before that show went.......

Great videos. Stay safe during the storm since I believe that you’re in N.C.

In the 90s I had an PC-AT keyboard with integrated LCD screen and with the press of a button you could use the numpad to do calculations and there also was a key to make the keyboard "type out" the displayed number. So you could easily transfer the results into applications. It also had 12 programmable keys where you could store 20 keypresses per key.

Thanks for this bit of quirky fun

This is one of those things I used to take for granted and never noticed when they disappeared, and totally forgot they ever existed until now.

LGR, I have a blue Curtis Keyboard Calculator. I think they came in various colors, has a solar panel, and also takes a battery. It was attached to a Model M that was what I now consider one of the best condition Model M 1391401 keyboards I have ever seen. I pulled the calculator off and have it laying around. If you want it, let me know, and it's yours!

2:38 that ribbon cable popped out like nobody installed it rofl

Whoa! You're almost at 1 mil LGR! Back when I subbed you were only at 300k!

LGR intro sound and looking looks glorious every time i see it. Its just nostalgic.

Ho wow! I love these novelty items, kinda like the mini PC FM radio...

Everything about this is pleasing.

Almost lost it when you put the calculator on the modern keyboard. Was not expecting that.

The second I saw this I figured it'd make a great gift for my friend. However, like you said, I can't find one anywhere! Time to generate a watchlist I suppore.

I had one of those, back in the day. Quite useful.

I’d still buy nowadays... probably wouldn’t end up using it but it’s a pretty cool and unique little thing.

People back then still used DOS and it did not have any internal calculator built in. Sure there were extra applications like Sidekick that gave it. When the calculator is fixed to the keyboard it does not get lost.

@johnfrancisdoe1563

5 жыл бұрын

Okaro X Consider sticking this on the cashier computer at Radio Shack. Good for calculating extra discounts or suggesting alternative component values when 180 ohm 5% 1W is unexpectedly out of stock.

Interesting how something so simple and small can still be entertaining to watch about from LGR.

I had a Focus FK-9000 keyboard that had a built-in calculator (including a liquid crystal display) that you could switch between it and the number pad with a button. It also had diagonal direction keys, too, which was quite the gaming challenge.

That really is strange that Radio Shack sold this for so long while constantly selling it at below suggested retail price. It makes you wonder what they thought they had to gain from this? Aside from what couldn't have been a large profit per unit sold I can't imagine many people would have bought this in the first place for the same reasons it's odd, most OSes had a calculator built in and if they didn't you probably had a far superior calculator that makes this obsolete before you even know it exists. Who knows, could have been a horrible miscommunication gone uncorrected for years, or perhaps a conspiracy of some kind at Radio Shack corporate? We may never know. Great video Clint, short and simple, a nice way of changing things up. :)

That Packard Bell keyboard brought back a ton of memories!

First thing I thought of are those Focus keyboards with built in calculators that you control with the numpad.

I'd forgotten about these. I had one of the Curtis branded ones back then.

Man an upload finally, remind me of my dad's trs-80 but he sell the thing later :(

I had an really old keyboard with an inbuilt calculator along with the number pads, had an LCD display with a switch to turn on the number pad to a calculator

What a fantastically fantastic piece of computer history tat. I must own one.

Another thing I sold at Radio Shack: America's Technology Store. I remember stacking these high when they were on sale in the monthly flyer!

934k good to see it's still growing

Lovely gadget!

Very nice thing 😀 I'd get this one to my collection if I could buy it

I used to have one of these Radio shack Keyboard Calculator on my old Compaq Presario.. the nostalgia is neat.

I could see plenty of reasons back in the nineties to use one of these for professional computers if you weren't doing extremely heavy calculations consistently. Multitasking was still not consistently reliable, and out dated hardware is always common in businesses looking to cut a little off the budget. Honestly a government agency I deal with could probably use something like that to avoid the slow down of opening calc... Like seriously they're given such under powered and locked down rigs that it was a noticable delay when they attempted to open the calculator app...

@Caseytify

5 жыл бұрын

As I said above, Sidekick and Desqview worked quite well under MS-DOS, and Sidekick was memory efficient.

@RealLuckless

5 жыл бұрын

@@Caseytify and would using such a program be likely to get me an answer to a simple calculation faster than keying it into the dedicated device on the keyboard? I'm sure not going to try task switching a 286 that's already hammering it's memory just to confirm I didn't transpose a few digits in my head while doing simple math.

@ascania2547

5 жыл бұрын

Sidekick List price $199.95, Desqview List price $129.95. How much was this calculator again?

My grandma got me one. My mom may have saved it somewhere but I'd love to have it again. Fond memories. I do still have a RadioShack all stainless pen with digital clock on it.

Reminds me of my Focus FK-5001 keyboard which has a builtin calculator, Model F and standard FKeys, and of course an AT/XT switch for its 5 pin DIN connector.

Awww, how lovely!

4:56 - Oh wow, Fn-F7 brings up my calculator! Thanks for the life hack, Clint!

I always wanted one of these. I recall there being aftermarket computer keyboards that had an LCD screen, that you could use the number pad as a calculator, independent of the keyboard. There might have even been a few add-on 10 key pads that allowed you to use them as a calculator. Kensington, and Belkin come to mind. I believe another company made a mouse that had a calculator on it.

My step-mom owned a Radio Shack franchise from 1988 until sometime in the early 2000s -- I don't remember precisely which year she sold it and retired... But throughout *all* of the 1990s I had *tons* of Radio Shack stuff. I remember these -- I had one in the early '90s. It was cheap crap that failed after a year or so -- the screen did that same thing that yours did.

awesome thing