Exactra 22 & 23 display - The dos and donts of buying a vintage calculator

[thd9791]

Hey everyone,

So I learned something new today, thought I would share in-case others weren't aware.

We all know the Exactra 19 & 20 (and the TI-2000) have the bubbles we want for a screen-accurate lightsaber, 7 nice clear bubbles. The 21 & 22 have 9 bubbles.

Other calculators DO have bubbles as well, while NOT screen accurate

The TI-1250
DATAMATH

TI-1200
DATAMATH

TI Business Industrial (normal and "I")
http://capitaldealsonline.com/store/images/10023/?370,370,2,741959094

some commodore, HP and rockwell calculators have the lens strip

even the TI-little Professor
http://www.thepcmuseum.net/comp_images/photo_TILilProf_02thum.JPG

However, I'm beginning to think, not all Exactras have a bubble strip

I opened mine up, and there was nothing, just the red smooth LED Stick. The DATA MATH website matches what I've found in their internal picture
DATAMATH PICTURES


So...my mistake, I saw the data math big picture which looks like there could be bubbles in there. The ebay picture included a dark screen with no light shining through. I didn't catch on until I looked closer at DATA MATH (thank youu whoever wrote that website) I've started looking up anything on the bay there, to confirm bubbles if I want something real but not screen accurate. Still searching though, we all learn one way or another :lol

EDIT: Exactra 22 has the same issue, no bubble strip!
DATAMATH

 

[exoray]

Anytime you are dealing with vintage calculators you have to remember that the tech in these things was developing and changing by the week... This was the start of the personal computer age, and these thing were hotcakes of that industry... Every company making these things was looking for a way to undercut the competition and if that meant making a revision to the products guts (with literally that weeks newest development) they jumped on it so they could leverage the price... No need to waste money on a new model number, new packaging or even tell the consumer the insides were different since it functioned the same...

Collecting calculators and their unknown internal revisions can be a tangled mess...

 

[thd9791]

^ Very insightful, thank you! It is an interesting business. Prop making aside, it's cool to have one of these

Do people know...are most LED bubble strips the same size?

 

[pfillery]

And the big pitfall of course, that with all of us trying to get original screen acurate parts is that a lot of the calculators out there, while being the correct model, have either had the strip removed (a fact not always disclosed) by the buyer, then seller, attempting to recoup some costs - you know, buy it for $100, get an original strip and resell for $80 to $100 - free parts! or someone has replaced the real strip with a cheaper copy strip. There are a lot of unscrupulous sellers out there. one i looked at on a certain auction site looked like it wasn't right so I asked if it was complete and intact with the bubble strip, the seller dodged the question, had claimed it was working but told me they didn't have any batteries to check if the bubble strip was there, a bit of a copout really. Still went for big money, someone would have been disappointed and asking for a refund.