Santron 400A
Brief History
Several educational toy were released with animal decorations in the year of 1976, almost every semidonductor company made its own version. National Semiconductor Corporation has announced the owl-shaped QuizKid in 1975, Santron made a functional copy of this machine, the model 400 with a usual housing with a clown. After keying in an expression, pressing =, then entering an answer, pressing ? makes an eye of the clown lights up: the green stands for correct equation, the red for an incorrect one.
Maybe supplying problems caused Santron manufactured a version of the original 400, the 400A constructed from an ordinary calculator. It has a brilliant solution for operating the two LEDs: the machine tests for division by zero.
| Manufacturer: | Santron Electronics Co. Ltd. (ismeretlen) |
| Mfg. date: | 1976 |
| Size: | 7,4×13,1×3,7 cm |
| Weight (ready for operate): | n.a. |
| Type: | four-function |
| Capacity: | 8 digits (input) 8 digits (internal precision) |
| Operating logic: | algebraic |
| CPU: | General Instrument C593 |
| Registers: | 2 standard (with saving the pending operation) 1 constant (with saving the pending operation) |
| Features: | Ffloating-point notation |
| Display: | none |
| Power: | 2×AA-type battery 3V adaptor |
Santron 400A
Inside of the 400A
Részletes leírás
Operation
To implement usual operation of these toys, the keyboard must be rearranged: the = button is a second - button, the CHK is identical to ÷, the ? stands instead of the original =. After keying in a problem and press =, then the result, it corresponds to a subtraction. If a correct result was entered, the difference will be 0. Pressing the keys CHK ? results to division by a constant factor, so for a correct result it causes a division by zero error, otherwise the result will be 1. These outputs controls the two LEDs.Using
Keying in an algebraic problem is identical to usual. Press =, and then key in the result. Press CHK ?. The green light powers up indicating the correct equation, the red light stands for an incorrect one.Examples:
6 + 2 + 1.5 = 9.5 CHK ? results green light, so the answer is correct.
3 ÷ 1.5 = 2.5 CHK ? results red light indicating incorrect answer.
Curiosities:
6 + 2 + 1.5 = 9.5 CHK ? results green light, so the answer is correct.
3 ÷ 1.5 = 2.5 CHK ? results red light indicating incorrect answer.
The operation described above allows misleading the machine, e.g. the following keyings results to green light:
6 CHK 0 +
6 - 6 ÷ ?
6 CHK 0 +
6 - 6 ÷ ?
These switches on the red LED:
1 ?
1 ? 77777
This lights up both of the lights:
12345678 × 10 + ?
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