From: G6JPG@255soft.uk   
      
   On 2026/1/31 14:9:59, John wrote:   
   > On Wed, 28 Jan 2026 13:22:14 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver"   
   >  wrote:   
   >   
   >> On 2026/1/28 8:50:44, John wrote:   
      
   []   
      
   >> I also have, somewhere one of their   
   >>> original portable calculators. Same vintage. Neither is worth lifting.   
   >>>  Unless someone out there is a collector?   
   >>>   
   >> My one of those was more green gas-discharge tube (didn't half eat   
   >> batteries [cells]).   
   >   
   >  My calculator almost certainly is LED. That, too, ate power like a   
   > drunken M.P. at a party.   
      
   :-)   
      
   >   
   >> FX-411 I think - had the a b/c way of doing   
      
   (Actually might have been 451.)   
      
   >> fractions, which I think was exclusive to Casio then,   
   >   
   >  That *seems* to be familiar though I'm not sure. I *could* charger   
   > her up and find out but I'm upstairs, the box isn't and I doubt   
   > whether compatible power packs have been sold at any time during this   
   > Millennium.   
   >   
   >> though I've   
   >> noticed it in cheap ones in the last few years, so the patent must have   
   >> lapsed or a way round it found.   
   >   
   >  It's circuitry and software, if fifty thousand hackers hadn't cracked   
   > it two weeks after Casio first sold one then I'd be terribly   
   > disappointed in the species. Whether anyone commercial *cared* enough   
   > to copy Casio is another discussion. :) Was the slash format a great   
   > selling point?   
      
   Well, it remained something I only saw on Casios for, I think, some   
   years; either hacking wasn't quite at the same speed then, or no-one   
   else thought it worth-while. Or, they managed to patent the concept, not   
   the implementation.   
      
   I don't know if it was a good selling point; it appealed to me as you   
   could enter fractions exactly. There was a key labelled something like   
   a b/c; you entered one and three quarters as 1 [thatkey] 3 [thatkey] 4,   
   and it displayed as 1L3L4 on the seven-segment display (the Ls being the   
   bottom and bottom-left segments). No slash.   
      
   >   
   >  But you're totally right: the reason courts are full of cases   
   > claiming patent infringements is because workarounds are plentiful and   
   > easy. Once you build a Stardrive, the Klingons get one within a week.   
      
   :-) Depends on plot requirements! ISTR something - I think it was the   
   (first) cloaking device - remained uncracked for most of a series. (In   
   fact I think it was only cracked when Spock pretended to defect,   
   chatting up a [lady] Klingon captain in the process, so he and Kirk   
   could steal it.)   
      
   >   
   >  Nothing amenable to the scientific method of enquiry can *ever* be   
   > secret for long. It's a pity Apple and Microsoft's marketing and   
   > leadership prats never seem to grasp that.   
      
   They have lots of lawyers though.   
      
   >   
   >  I could make a rounded 'phone shell in my kitchen from ready-meal   
   > trays. It wouldn't be nice but it *would* be rounded and it would hold   
   > the guts - temporarily. I might need some sticky-backed plastic, too.   
   >   
   >>>                                                             J.   
      
   I have a real rotary 'phone, though the handset ("receiver") has   
   developed an intermittent fault so I'm not using it at the moment, such   
   things being the devil to find.   
      
   --   
   J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)