Simon Boak’s SB116 is a TI Programmer-inspired DIY calculator
Many types of calculators exist beyond those basic models that everyone used in elementary school. The most common is the scientific calculator, including the iconic Texas Instruments TI-83. Programmer’s calculators contain buttons and functionality designed to help with coding, with the ability to work in binary, hexadecimal, and other base systems and to perform logic operations like XOR and AND. Simon Boak had a 45-year-old TI Programmer that was becoming unreliable, so he built his own 16-bit integer Reverse Polish notation (RPN) calculator with an Arduino.
Boak’s SB116 programmer’s calculator very closely mimics both the button layout and functionality of that old TI calculator. The most visible difference is that the SB116 has a modern SSD139 driver-based 2.42” OLED display with a resolution of 128×64, in contrast to the vintage TI’s retro bubble LED screen. The keypad looks almost identical to the original, with the only other major external aesthetic difference being the gorgeous custom aluminum enclosure that Boak constructed. To add to the aesthetic, Boak even made a matching retail box that looks absolutely fantastic.
Also: Fanless Mini-PC features up to 4x 2.5GbE LAN ports and Elkhart Lake processor