DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM
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DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM |
Texas Instruments PC-100A cradle
| Date of introduction: | 1976 | Display technology: | |
| New price: | $199.95 (SRP 1977), £209.00 | Display size: | |
| Size: | 10.4" x 11.3" x 4.1" | Printer technology: | Thermal |
| Weight: | 5 pounds 9 ounces | Serial No: | 8033070 |
| Batteries: | Date of manufacture: | wk 19 year 1977 | |
| AC-Adapter: | 120 V or 240 V | Origin of manufacture: | Netherland |
| Precision: | Integrated circuits: | TMC0251, TMC0561, TMC0569 | |
| Memories: | |||
| Program steps: | Courtesy of: | Joerg Woerner | |
| Download leaflet: | 
(US: 2.3 MByte) |
Download manual: |
(US: 3.3 MByte) |
The
PC-100A printing cradle followed the PC-100 within
a few months. It can be used with the
SR-52, SR-56, TI-58 and
TI-59 (not the TI-57).
Its thermal printer has 64 alphabetic, numeric and special characters which can be printed at the
rate of 60 characters per second. Up to 20 characters can be printed per line on
2.5 inch wide thermal paper.
The PC-100A can also be used to print, list or trace program steps as an aid to
debugging.
The PC-100A cradle also had some more features than just the printer. It functions as a power-adapter and also has a storage/charging compartment where you can charge the battery pack. The calculator (and batterypack compartment) is locked solidly to the cradle with the use of a key.
Dismantling
the PC-100A printing cradle reveals a rather complex printed circuit board (PCB)
based on a TMC0251 single-chip micro-computer and two additional TMC0561 and
TMC0569 ROM to support the SR-52 resp SR-56 calculators.
Don't miss the SR-60 using similiar
components.
American Micro Products introduced with the
Module Selector a very interesting product
fitting into the charging bay of the PC-100A printer cradle.
Although not officially supported by TI, several people were able to use the PC-100A with
SR-51 and SR-51A calculators by putting the PC-100A in
SR-52 mode. Some people found that the print mode worked fine with their SR-51's but never could get the trace mode to work, getting a "1" and a
"?" on the printout.
The SR-51-II cannot be connected to the PC-100A because of a redesign of the battery compartment.
Although the SR-50A has a print cradle connector similar to the SR-51, and fits on the printer, apparantly it was not preprogrammed for printout.
The successor of the PC-100A is the PC-100C which lacks the switch that makes it compatible with the SR-52 and
SR-56. The PC-100B was only a short time available, it
was a mixture of the old and new cradle.
Printer paper:
The thermal paper used with this printer (TP-30250 2-1/2" wide and 14 Feet length) was discontinued long time ago. In 2008 Appleton (Appleton, WI) manufactured with the Alpha 700-2.4 paper still a compatible paper.
If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.
© Joerg Woerner, January 3, 2002. No reprints without written permission.