TEK 31 was: Re: New toy!!!

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Sun Jul 11 12:43:29 1999

Christian,

At 10:57 PM 7/10/99 -0400, you wrote:
>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' :)

   Lucky you! Actually I just found out that two other list members also
have one each. Looks like a total of five now.

 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.

  Very true. HP specialized in test equipment and developed the computers
many as controllers and was moderately successfull. Tek tried to do the
same thing but was no where near as sucessfull from what I've seen. All
the Tektronix computers and calculators (4051, 4051, 31, 903, etc) are very
rare.


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

   I don't have any tapes, just pictures.

   Joe
Received on Sun Jul 11 1999 - 12:43:29 BST