Elektronika MK-152: Retrograde Russian Programmable Calc

While the poster at Paradoxoff is slagging this "Elektronika MK-152" programable calculator—and it is very humble, with only half a meg of memory, membrane keys, and no power supply—I find its sturdy Russian construction and no-fuss design appealing. Of course, I don't have to use it, only admire it from afar.

But as one commentor noted:

The programming language of this device is very easy. There are many problems for non-programmers that should be solved. How much does it spend for engeneer to write program that realize his new function, if he doesn’t programming languages? In C++ it spends more than half of day. In this device it spends less than 15 mins. And about memory for example: a program to calculate square root takes 24 bytes only.

Then again, this thing is going for over $150 in Russia, so expecting a few more modern features is not unreasonable.

Elektronika MK-152 programmable calculator from the year 2007 [Paradoxoff.com]

[#1 posted by Bavi_H , November 16, 2007 9:47 PM]

I was interested in this, but the linked blog entry only had a picture and no other link.

Here's the original site and a Google translation:
НПП СЕМИКО - электронные вычислительные машины
PNP SEMIKO - electronic computing machines

[#2 posted by Bavi_H , November 16, 2007 9:58 PM]

Oops. Working translated link:
PNP SEMIKO - electronic computing machines

[#3 posted by Anonymous , November 17, 2007 1:46 PM]

You may wish to use it to control chemical equipment rather than use as usual calculator. (It can not even run on batteries :) It has special RS ports at the back that are similar to RS-232 but more than two devices can communicate via same cable.

So they sell it with new equipment as well as for use with old equipment that used 25-years old microcomputers of same series (backward compatibility is 100% preserved, including undocumented features). In addition thay've made so weird advertisement that it's now known around the world, virus style, hence the ad is not bad :)

BTW, initially price was more than $200 and chemists bought it anyway -- still much better than a risk of loss last functional 25-30 years old piece of scrap with set of programs.

[#4 posted by Anonymous , March 21, 2008 2:36 AM]

program to calculate square root takes 24 bytes only
Definitely, there is mistake.
24 bytes are taken by program to resolve quadratic equation not square root ;)

Regards,
Serguei Tarassov
See more info about soviet/russians calculators here
http://arbinada.com/pmk/node/56