From: Peter Bavarius
To: Ray Mackay
Subject: Casio Date Function
Date: Friday, 30 January 1998

I read the article on Old Casio Calculators with great interest. I was surprised that it didn't mention what I consider CASIO's most useful and unusual feature in some of these older calculators. I am referring to the "DATE" key which allowed entering of year "DATE", month "DATE", and day "DATE" and which would then display the entered date with DAY OF THE WEEK.

No other manufacturer, to my knowledge, ever included this particular feature. CASIO also suddenly dropped it and it never came back. At least one model office printing calculator also had this "DATE" key. I often wondered why this feature was dropped. Do you know? Could it have been some patent issue, perhaps? Or did people get confused by it?

The other two unusual features of CASIO pocket calculators that should be mentioned are: the "EQUALS" key which would *NOT* go into unwanted automatic "Constant" mode like everybody else's. CASIO from early on required a function to be pressed *twice* to go into constant.

Another extremely useful function of almost all CASIOs is the way the percent key works. Different from everyone else. It is the only one where amount1 - amount2 "PERCENT" will show by what percentage amount1 is smaller (if negative) or larger than amount2. Instant percent difference calculations! No one else has it. Most users don't know how to use it.

Do you know anything about the "DATE" feature? (It covered 200 years). One calculator, with green fluorescent display, had it as well as "FRACTIONS". I believe you have it in your article. But you don't mention the (super useful) "DATE" key. (Entry is YY MM DD, or in the case of 2000 date, YYYY MM DD. A number is then shown to identify the day of the week. Additionally one date can be subtracted from another for the difference in days. Also days can be added to, or be subtracted from a date, giving a new date with day of the week.)

Peter

Thank you for the information. I had never seen a % key used that way before and I have been with Casio since 1972. It is a great selling point. I tried it on current pocket and desktop models and it worked fine.

I also checked through pocket calcs and Casio still make quite a range of time calculators. I responded earlier about the remaining desktop 'time & date calculator'

In pocket Calculators you have quite a range of machines in the current series that do time calculations: eg

QA-10 : QA-70 : QA-100 & QA-700 SL-300LU ($14-95) SL-807LU

LC-403LU : SL-1530T the business card calcs SL-760LU

SL-720L HS-8LU and as per the attached illustration the HL-820. ($9-95)

In larger calcs the J-100L : J120L and D100L. The

DS-1L / 2lL / 10L / 20L ($59-95)etc

As you can see Casio still make quite a range of time calculators.

My field of expertise is Educational Calculators and as such I rarely get called upon for guidance on commercial models and therefore have no idea on pricing. The prices I do have do not indicate time calculators as being any more expensive than standard models.

I guess it is the same as most things; they are great if you have the application.

I pulled out some old CQ-1's and CQ-2's and did date calculations and they are year 2000 compliant. In otherwords they can have the date programmed by yy mm dd or yyyy mm dd (which would be required for compliance. I also put batteries in older MQ-1 calcs and they also accepted both forms of date.)

Time, of course is not a problem and now I know date is not a problem either. These calculators would be circa 1972 ~ 1975 which is really quite extraordinary.

Regards

CASIO SCHOOL CALCULATORS (Australia)
HelpDesk
per Ray Mackay
highlander@i.net.au

Just looked at the image, too. Time but no date, right? SL-300lu may have been one of the first inexpensive models with TIME added. Paid about $4 US for it. About 5 years ago. I think there was an earlier SL-300 without TIME. Also still accepts (and converts) 0-99 MM and SS, by the way. And also doesn't "auto-off".

Peter

Re date Calculation on modern Casio's. In addition to models indicated previously the following current models also do date calculations and are year 2000 compatible.

FC-100 FC-200 and FC-1000 (see 1997/98 catalogue)

These should be available through the Casio-Classroom in Florida their 'hyperlink', is Pegasus, and can be accessed through our Web sites resources page at http://www.casio-calculator.com.

Another good source of Casio Information is http://www.casio.fr and their site is also available by hyperlink. Unfortunately the text is in French however the illustrations and maths are universal.

Regards Ray