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Texas Instruments TI-2800 Paperless Printer

Date of introduction:  1987 Display technology:  LCD
New price:  $65.00 (SRP 1988) Display size:  8 + 6 lines * 8
Size:  6.5" x 4.9" x 0.5
 165 x 124 x 12 mm3
   
Weight:  7.3 ounces, 202 grams Serial No:  
Batteries:  3*LR43 Date of manufacture:  mth 11 year 1988
AC-Adapter:   Origin of manufacture:  Taiwan (I)
Precision:  8 Integrated circuits:  Toshiba T7971, T7724, LC3518 (or TC5518)
Memories:  1 + 99 lines    
Program steps:   Courtesy of:  Joerg Woerner
    Download manuals:   (US: 3.8 MByte)
  (DE, FR: 3.6 MByte)

Texas Instruments introduced in 1988 a revolutionary concept: The TI-2800 Paperless Printer! The calculator works like the known printing desktops e.g. the TI-5010. All calculations are done on the main display. Instead the usual printout on a paper the results are scrolled through a secondary display with 6 lines. A maximum of 99 lines could be stored and scrolled up and down with the arrow keys.

Dismantling this foldable TI-2800 Paperless Printer manufactured in November 1988 by Inventec Corporation in Taiwan reveals an interesting design with two large printed circuit boards (PCBs) in a compact package.

PaperlessPrinter_PCB.jpg (472494 Byte)Compared with a simple desktop calculator the internal construction of the Paperless Printer was much more difficult. In each of the two shells of the housing a large, double-sided PCB was integrated. The Main PCB is centered around a Toshiba T7724 microcontroller with an external 2k*8 Static RAM, while the Display PCB used a Toshiba T7971 chip to control the two individual LC Displays.

The TI-2800 Paperless Printer was soon replaced with the TI-5038. A big step in cost reduction was achieved with the TI-5028.

Texas Instruments launched in 1987 a very innovative product line with the TI-2400 Phone Bank, TI-2600 Personal Banker, TI-2700 Mini Data Bank, and TI-2800 Paperless Printer followed till 1990 with the TI-2100 Pocket Info, TI-2900 Info Bank, TI-3100 Pocket Dialer, TI-3200 Pro Dialer, and TI-3400 EUROPA.

Don't miss the TI-2300 introduced in 1988.

If you know the history of Texas Instruments it seems to commemorate the introduction of the TI-2500 Datamath a quarter century ago.



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

© Joerg Woerner, May 9, 2002. No reprints without written permission.