henry (11/01/82)
My cousin told me about a related incident that happened which he was
an Engineering undergrad. At this particular school, the engineers
and the agriculture students ("agros") were constantly at war. At one
point, some agros having fun with a fire hose decided to squirt some
water in the window of an engineering classroom. There was a lab in
progress with calculators all over the place. After the dust had
settled and financial liability had been agreed, it developed that
most of the non-HP calculators were ruined, while the HP's survived
fine. The local HP man did recommend that the keypads be taken
apart and cleaned, but that was a lesser issue. The spill shield
that HP puts in behind its keypads had kept the insides dry.
Note that the spill shield is designed to protect against spills, not
against total immersion of the calculator. Not even HP calculators
are totally waterproof, and once water actually gets into the insides
of a calculator I suspect it doesn't much matter who built it.djb (11/01/82)
When I was an undergraduate, my lab partner and I were working late
on a Saturday night on one of our EE electronics projects. As we were
finishing up (at around 1:30am) we noticed it was beginning to rain.
We hastily gathered our paraphenalia and made a frantic 1/2 mile dash
back to the dorm, where we collapsed soaked and burnt out. The next
morning I happened by my desk and noticed my calculator was missing.
A thorough check of the apartment turned up nothing, and I faintly
recalled not having it when I got in the night before. I hurredly
threw on some clothes and retraced my steps back to the EE building.
Nothing! I looked everywhere, including the lab we'd been working in,
and found nothing. While posting a lost-and-found note on the board in
the student lounge, I was approached by a graduate student who said
he'd found a calculator like mine just that morning, and would return
it if I could produce the serial number as proof. I did so, and we
went to his office so I could recover it. On the way, he told me that
he'd been on his way in around 8:00am and had chanced to spot what
he figured was an empty calculator case submerged in a fairly deep
puddle. Absent mindedly, he kicked the case out of the puddle, and
was greatly surprised to find the calculator still in it. Apparently,
my calculator had spent the night soaking in the puddle!
After a disassembly and good drying, I put the calculator back together,
hooked in the AC adaptor and turned it on. Miracle of miracle, it
worked! And it continues to do so to this very day (5 years later).
The clincher? It's a Texas Instrument SR-50.
David Bryant
cbosg!djb
Why am I tempted to say "Now you know the rest of the story?"
ps: What was that joke about a naive nursing student that was
goaded by her friends to ask an Engineer to see his "Texas
Instrument"...?mcewan (11/03/82)
#R:cbosgd:-276900:uiucdcs:10400023:000:118 uiucdcs!mcewan Nov 2 15:45:00 1982 I propose a new newsgroup: net.wet.calculator. I'm not afraid to admit I don't even own a calculator Scott McEwan