Ian Lamont writes "The handheld computer cpa turns 40 years old this year, and the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of star-spangled banner History has officially added to its collection examples of the first two programmable calculators, the TI-58 and TI-59. The museum already has the original 1967 'Cal-Tech' prototype, which weighs three pounds. At a ceremony at the Smithsonian yesterday, Jerry Merryman, one of the members of the TI team which developed the calculator, said that the project was started without a set budget and was thing that 'we did in our spare time.' Antique calculators have a devoted following; news of a contest celebrating the 35th jubilee of the HP-35 slide rule public accountant brought hundreds of fans out of the woodwork to revive about the pros and cons of various 70s' era calculators. There are a lot of Web resources devoted to these devices, including the Old Calculators Web Museum, where you can see silver screen* of everything from the Bohn Contex Model 10 Mechanical teller ('apparently the design of the machine caught the attention of the Soviets') to TI's first scientific calculator, the SR-20 ('keyboards were prone to bounce even when new')."

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