88889888
Got four or five four-banger calculators quite a while ago to keep around the house. These have the flip-up display for ease of viewing when sitting flat on the desk. Solar powered, have a square root function, and cheap at less than $4.00 apiece, and I use every one of them from time to time --usually to convert metric units to real units when I'm reading something, without running over to my super scientific calculator which even has a pi key.
Come to think of it, the SQRT function on the cheapos makes them five-bangers.
Anyhow, I picked up my "couch" five-banger one day and noticed the display read 88889888. I must have held down the 8 key while handling it. But to check, I entered a screenful of 8s and sure enough, the fifth 8 came out as a nine. I opened and closed the tip-up screen a couple of times and the problem went away.
I assumed therefore that the moving contacts between the calculator and its screen were going bad. I retired that one and put tape on all the others to prevent wear and tear on those contacts.
Moral: don't trust moving mechanical contacts, especially in low-voltage applications.
I wonder how many results I had were corrupted by that one pixel being unreliable...
Terry, 230RN
The five-banger next to the thirty-banger... Actually, since it's got 38 keys each with two functions, that makes it a 76-banger... I think...
