Upon the date 01:13 PM 7/10/99 +0000, Joe said something like:
[thread in regard to Joe's Esco 31, aka TEK 31]
>Jeff,
>
>At 01:01 AM 7/10/99 -0500, you wrote:
>>Joe:
>>
>>Whatta score, guy! Those are pretty rare,
>
> You're telling me! That was the find of the summer! :-)
>
>I don't think I've
>>ever actually seen on of these . . .
>
> Me either. AFIK only Rick Bensene and one other guy have one. AFIK
>they're EXTREMELY rare.
I'm that 'other guy' :) The speculation that these are 'extremely' rare
could be right on the money but until we beat the bushes enough to know for
sure I defer use of that modifier 'EXTREMELY' to the background. My sense
is that this type of tool was not used by the 'normal' high end scientific
calculator user, except maybe occasionally in a university math/science
department, but rather by folks who needed a machine/test station
controller with fancy calculating ability. Other high end electronic
calculators typically from HP, Olivetti, Friden, Wang, etc. were more
popular it seems. I would imagine not a whole heap of TEK 31's were sold
(cost vs. utility?) and those that were may have been scrapped with the
equipment they were built into or otherwise attached to. Or else something
broke on them (tape drive my first guess.)
I have only one tape which came with the unit. I could not find any others
in that old warehouse owned by the machine tool dealer I got it from. Could
have been buried under that pidgeon poop spread all over the place. Ugh!
Seems the building became a giant pidgeon coop because of several broken
windows on that floor. The dealer had bid on and won a very large group of
machine tools, process equipment, electronic test equipment, furniture and
fixtures from the IBM-Endicott plant which 'severely downsized' around
1984. I got a bunch of HP, Tektronix and miscellaneous test equipment plus
my TEK 31 for cheap from them. Still have most of the gear. Most of the
poop has been scraped off ;) Anyway, I would be interested in getting one
or more extra tapes for my unit as the one I've got looks rather 'well used'.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt_at_netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
Check our redesigned website!
URL:
http://www.antiquewireless.org/
Received on Sat Jul 10 1999 - 21:57:23 BST