DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM
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DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM |
Texas Instruments TI-1750 (1st design)
| Date of introduction: | April 1977 | Display technology: | LCD (yellow) |
| New price: | $24.95, £18.95 | Display size: | 8 |
| Size: | 4.5" x 2.7" x 0.35" 115 x 68 x 9 mm3 |
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| Weight: | 2.3 ounces, 65 grams | Serial No: | 213387 |
| Batteries: | 3*LR44 | Date of manufacture: | mth 07 year 1977 |
| AC-Adapter: | Origin of manufacture: | Japan | |
| Precision: | 8 | Integrated circuits: | Toshiba T3532 |
| Memories: | 1 | ||
| Program steps: | Courtesy of: | Joerg Woerner | |
| Download manual: | 
(US: 0.8M Bytes) |
With
the TI-1750 Texas Instruments entered 1977 the market of LCD-calculators. Due to
their high manufacturing costs in the beginning of the epoch, TI introduced the
LED calculator TI-1000 as cheap
alternative. The TI-1750 was manufactured about 3 years but got five
different versions.
Read
more about the history of the TI-1750 here.
Concerning LCD-calculators Texas Instruments was far behind Japanese companies. Sharp Corporation started sales already in the year 1973 with the EL-805 sporting a silver-colored COS-LCD display. If you restrict the comparison on the first calculator using the yellow-screen FEM-type display you find the Casio's Pocket LC introduced in the year 1975, the Sharp EL-8020, Toshiba's LC-810 and finally the Canon LC-1.
It took another 4 years between the TI-1750 and the TI-1766 using solar cells instead the batteries. This was around 5 years behind Sharp's rare EL-8026 Sunman and Teal's Photon.
| The reverse side of the PCB gives you an early T3532 calculator chip manufactured by Toshiba. Please notice the contacts for the keys and the LC-display. |  |
| The electrical connection between the PCB and the LCD is built with 30 small springs ! Later designs used the "zebra-strips", a stacked sandwich of rubber and conductive elements. The keyboard is a sheet of rubber with small conductive elements. |  |
| This rare 1st design of the TI-1750 uses 3 batteries under a sliding door. |  |
This TI-1750 calculator was produced in Japan in opposite to the later US origin of the slimline models like the TI-1030 and is somewhat larger. The electronics of the TI-1750 is based on a Toshiba design similar to the later Canon LC-8M. The first US built LCD calculator from Texas Instruments was the odd TI-1700 DATACLIP.
If we trace back the routes of Toshiba calculator chips within the TI-line, we evaluate:
| Type | Model | Introduction | First Toshiba IC |
| Basic | TI-1750 (1st) | year 1977 | T3532, year 1976 |
| Basic SLR | TI-1766 | year 1981 | T6789, year 1981 |
| Scientific | TI-25 | year 1978 | T3636, year 1977 |
| Scientific SLR | TI-30 SLR | year 1982 | T6824, year 1982 |
| Financial | none | T6787, year 1982 | |
| Financial SLR | BA-SOLAR | year 1986 | T7917, year 1986 |
It took only a short time between the introduction of a Toshiba calculator chip and the corresponding Texas Instruments calculators. For the financial calculators TI used between the years 1978 and 1986 always their own chips, the missing link could be found with the Canon Financial calculator.
It was not unusual for Texas Instruments to start an epoche with Japanese technology and move later to US developments. You'll find similar approaches with the TI-25 to the TI-50.
Only few weeks after the market introduction of the TI-1750 another important calculator appeared, don't miss the TI-59.
If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.
© Joerg Woerner, May 15, 2002. No reprints without written permission.
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