Firmware Flashback

Earlier this year my mother was cleaning out her files and found this old newspaper clipping. I am one of spellbound high school freshmen. See the kid on the right with glasses, standing next to the math teacher? That is me. The picture dates from sometime in the early 1970s.

We are being wowed by a new technological breakthrough called a programmable electronic calculator. Oooooo, look but don’t touch!

The back of the clipping says we are looking at the school’s new Wang calculator. I poked around the web and by comparing pictures I think I have determined that the calculator is a Wang 720c Advance Programming Calculator. Just about everything you would want to know about one can be found at this Old Calculator Web Museum webpage: http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/wang720.html

Here is a “flashback” song and video, an old school computer remix of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It is performed on an Atari 800XL, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a, 8 Inch Floppy Disk, 3.5 inch Harddrive, and a HP ScanJet 3C. (Found on Wayne’s Nude Musicians blog)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4