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hamid_1 · 8th Nov 2018, 12:22 am

Nice find!

A quick search reveals it was introduced in 1969. The display appears to be a vacuum fluorescent tube, not Nixie tubes. Nixies have an orange glow. VFDs are usually blue or green.

History of Sharp calculators, including the CS-18D translated from Japanese: https://translate.google.com/transla...pd/sharpd.html

And this page in German also has your model: https://www.schlepptops.de/wiki/inde...e=Sharp_CS-18D

The Japanese page suggests that Sharp switched from using nixie tube displays to a newly-developed fluorescent display in their previous model CS-16D. This was because an American company (Burroughs) held the patents to the Nixie tube. Licensing fees were high, and Burroughs imposed a condition of license that meant Sharp could not export their Nixie tube calculators to the USA.

I'm guessing that the = key also doubles as 'add'. For example, if you typed 60=17= you would see the equivalent of 60+17=77 on the display.

8th Nov 2018, 12:22 am	#4
hamid_1 Heptode Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: High Wycombe, Bucks. UK. Posts: 811	Re: Sharp Compet 18 Nice find! A quick search reveals it was introduced in 1969. The display appears to be a vacuum fluorescent tube, not Nixie tubes. Nixies have an orange glow. VFDs are usually blue or green. History of Sharp calculators, including the CS-18D translated from Japanese: https://translate.google.com/transla...pd/sharpd.html And this page in German also has your model: https://www.schlepptops.de/wiki/inde...e=Sharp_CS-18D The Japanese page suggests that Sharp switched from using nixie tube displays to a newly-developed fluorescent display in their previous model CS-16D. This was because an American company (Burroughs) held the patents to the Nixie tube. Licensing fees were high, and Burroughs imposed a condition of license that meant Sharp could not export their Nixie tube calculators to the USA. I'm guessing that the = key also doubles as 'add'. For example, if you typed 60=17= you would see the equivalent of 60+17=77 on the display.