DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM |
Texas Instruments TI-1795
Texas
Instruments added in 1986 a small bump on the key #5 of the
TI-1795 as a tactile guide to ensure that your fingers are in the home position. Everything else seems to be identical to its predecessor introduced two years earlier.
Dismantling
this TI-1795 manufactured in October 1987 by Compal
Electronics, an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) in Taiwan, reveals a
clean design centered around a Sharp LI3135MS single-chip calculator circuit
soldered on a double-sided printed circuit board (PCB) and powered by solar
cells.
Inspecting
the PCB of this TI-1795 calculator brought our attention to a small mark reading
SD9-15, most likely a reference to Type
Small Desktop 9 and Revision 1.5
of the design (schematics and layout). We spotted this PCB-Mark already with the near identical offspring
Radio Shack EC-2006A. Two otherwise identical TI-1795 manufactured in
June 1986 respectively January 1987 read SD9-14
while a unit from July 1985 reads SD9-13. We started compiling a list
of the PCB-Marks on calculators
manufactured by OEMs for Texas Instruments. Meet Kmart
Corporation's KMC 100B - the first
born SD9 calculator with Revision 10.
This TI-1795 introduced in 1984 started a line of everlasting calculators,
compare it with the TI-1795+ and the TI-1795SV.
In 1988 the design of the TI-1795 was slightly changed before production was shifted to Thailand in 1991.
The TI-1775 put similar specifications in a foldable housing while the TI-1796 added a battery backup and sports a 10 digits display.
If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.
© Joerg Woerner, March 16, 2020. No reprints without written permission.