Simon Boak’s SB116 is a TI Programmer-inspired DIY calculator

Many kinds of calculators exist past these fundamental fashions that everybody utilized in elementary faculty. The commonest is the scientific calculator, together with the long-lasting Texas Devices TI-83. Programmer’s calculators include buttons and performance designed to assist with coding, with the power to work in binary, hexadecimal, and different base programs and to carry out logic operations like XOR and AND. Simon Boak had a 45-year-old TI Programmer that was turning into unreliable, so he constructed his personal 16-bit integer Reverse Polish notation (RPN) calculator with an Arduino.

Boak’s SB116 programmer’s calculator very carefully mimics each the button structure and performance of that previous TI calculator. Probably the most seen distinction is that the SB116 has a contemporary SSD139 driver-based 2.42” OLED show with a decision of 128×64, in distinction to the classic TI’s retro bubble LED display. The keypad seems to be nearly an identical to the unique, with the one different main exterior aesthetic distinction being the beautiful customized aluminum enclosure that Boak constructed. So as to add to the aesthetic, Boak even made an identical retail field that appears completely improbable.

The {hardware} parts for this calculator are minimal, because the Arduino can simply deal with the entire processing concerned. That’s a Nano, which connects to the OLED display and a customized keypad PCB that comprises 40 rubber dome buttons. The consumer can swap the ability provide between a USB port or a set of three AAA batteries. Boak’s Arduino sketches deal with the entire complicated performance of the calculator and even retailer choices when the calculator powers off, in addition to the register storage that one would anticipate from a programmer’s calculator.