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Texas Instruments TI-808 (Second Design, Black)

Date of introduction:  1987 Display technology:  LCD dot matrix
New price:   Display size:  8 
Size:  4.7" x 4.1" x 0.9"
 120 x 105 x 23 mm3
   
Weight:  2.7 ounces, 76 grams Serial No:  
Batteries:  n.a. Date of manufacture:  mth 12 year 1987
AC-Adapter:   Origin of manufacture:  Taiwan (C)
Precision:  8 Integrated circuits:  
Memories:  1    
Program steps:   Courtesy of:  Joerg Woerner

TI-808_P1.jpg (581285 Byte)Texas Instruments introduced with the TI-808 a small desktop calculator with a dot matrix display. It looks today like a marketing gag, neither readability nor design of the numbers was enhanced to standard calculators like the TI-1795+.

TI-808_PCB.jpg (509180 Byte)TI-808_BACK.jpg (361694 Byte)Dismantling this TI-808 (Second Design) manufactured in December 1987 by Compal Electronics in Taiwan reveals a surprise: The printed circuit board (PCB) of the calculator is labeled (TI-)508(-12). Not very helpful because the original TI-508 appeared on the market about one year after this TI-808.

Don't miss the white sibling of the TI-808 and the first Marketing Sample. Within a few months Texas Instruments changed to a conventional Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) instead of the fancy "dot matrix" display but kept the other internals. We refer to this final edition of the calculator as TI-808 (Third Design).

 


 

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If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.

© Joerg Woerner, June 24, 2002. No reprints without written permission.