DATAMATH  CALCULATOR  MUSEUM

Canon F-2

Date of introduction:  1975 Display technology:  Fluorescent
New price:   Display size:  7 + 2
Size:  6.5" x 3.3" x 1.25"
 164 x 84 x 32 mm3
    
Weight:  6.2 ounces, 176 grams Serial No:  300966
Batteries:  3*AA Date of manufacture:  year 1975
AC-Adapter:  AD-1 Origin of manufacture:  Japan
Precision:  7  Integrated circuits:  ZA0535
Memories:      
Program steps:   Courtesy of:  Joerg Woerner

On a first glance the Palmtronic F-2 could be called a scientific calculator. You'll easily notice keys like ax, log or D»R and even EXP to enter the exponent of a number. Using the calculator is quite funny: The display is always in a mode with 7 digits of mantissa and 2 digits of exponent and the 7 digits define the precision of the calculator. 

Even a simple operation like the square root of 9 takes a whooping 4 seconds and ends in a display of 2.99998  00! Funny to tell that the leftmost digit of the display counts some numbers during calculation time.
Immediately a second question will arise: 32= ? Entering the numerals and instructions is an interesting exercise: 

Key Display
[CL] 0.       00    
[3] 3.       00    
[ax] .477124  00    
[2] 2.       00    
[=] 9.00009  00    

A deeper exploration of the keyboard gives some other mismatches like a missing memory and the trigonometric functions without their inverse counterpart. The internal construction shows a LSI MOS chip of the TMS1000 family similar to the one in the Texas Instruments SR-16. But the algorithms seem to be much less perfect, we know similar performance from the F-7

Even Texas Instruments failed with some algorithm, don't miss the rare SR-40 Prototype.

The same housing was used with the F-6 in Canon's scientific calculator line and the Palmtronic LD-10M basic calculator.

horizontal rule

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

© Joerg Woerner, July 2, 2002. No reprints without written permission.