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DATAMATH CALCULATOR MUSEUM

Texas Instruments TI-1200 (Version 4)

Date of introduction:	April 1977	Display technology:	LED-stick
New price:		Display size:	8
Size:	5.5" x 2.8" x 1.4" 138 x 70 x 35 mm³
Weight:	3.9 ounces, 110 grams	Serial No:	A 1323392
Batteries:	9V	Date of manufacture:	wk 16 year 1977
AC-Adapter:	AC9180	Origin of manufacture:	USA (LTA)
Precision:	8	Integrated circuits:	TMS0972
Memories:
Program steps:		Courtesy of:	Joerg Woerner
		Download manuals:	(US: 1.3M Bytes) (EU: 3.5M Bytes)

The final step of cost reduction of the TI-1200/TI-1250 family was introduced just a few months before its discontinuation and included a smaller encapsulation of the TMS0972 Chip.

Dismantling the featured TI-1200 with Date code 1677 LTA and manufactured in April 1977 in Lubbock, Texas reveals a very efficient and cost-optimized design with a single-sided printed circuit board (PCB) centered around a TMS0972 single-chip calculator circuit based on the TMS1000, the World's first Microcomputer.

Early calculators of the TI-1200 and TI-1400 family use a keyboard with a 6*4 matrix having only 5 key-dome rows populated for a total of 20 keys. The unused key is hidden with the metal faceplate and removing it would add the missing [CS] or [+/-] key. Later the keyboard was cost-optimized to a 5*4 matrix. Find two of them in the Speak & Spell introduced in the year 1976.

While the original design of the TMS0972 was using a 0.6” wide 28-pin DIP (Plastic Dual In-line Package with a 0.1” / 2.54 mm lead pitch) encapsulation, switched the final design of the TMS0972 to a 0.4” wide 28-pin SPDIP (Shrink Plastic Dual In-line Package with a 0.07” / 1.778 mm lead pitch) encapsulation.

Learn more about the evolution of the TI-1200 between March 1975 and its discontinuation in 1977.

Learn more about the different Product Labels used with the TI-1200 - here at the Datamath Calculator Museum we classify the featured TI-1200 as Hardware Version 4, PCB Type 3 and Product Label Style 4, A-Series.

If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.