Retro Review: Texas Instruments Personal Banker
Quick Facts:
Models: Personal Banker
Company: Texas Instruments
Years: 1987 - 1988
Memory Register: 1 independent memory, 5 financial registers
Battery: Solar
Finance in a Clamshell Calculator
The Texas Instruments Personal Banker is a basic solar financial calculator. The calculator opens up like a book. The gray case gives the calculator a professional look.
On the left side, we have the arithmetic functions with the memory functions (M+, M-, MRC). There are three keys of note:
[ AC ]: The key clears everything, resets the format to 2 decimal fixed mode, clear the memory register, and the financial register.
[ CE/C ]: Clear the last entry but keeps everything in the memory register and financial registers intact.
[ DEC ]: This sets the fixed decimal format. The default is 2 places. [ DEC ] [ . ] (decimal point) sets the Personal Banker to floating mode.
On the right side are the Time Value of Money keys:
[ 1st Amt ]: Present Value (PV)
[ # Pmts ]: Number of Payments (n)
[ Int Rate ]: Interest Rate per Period (i%)
[ Pmt Amt ]: Payment (PMT)
[ Final ]: Future Value (FV)
The [ Solve ] and [ Recall ] keys work exactly the way you expect.
The cash flow convention (positive for inflows, negative for outflows) is followed.
It is very simple. A four function calculator with a full time value of money solver.
To help the user, included with the Personal Banker are four cards:
Blue Car Symbol: Loans & Mortgages
Red Dollar Symbol: Savings with Periodic Deposits
Gold Stock Graph Symbol: Investments
Green House Symbol: Loans & Mortgage with a Balloon Payment
Keyboard
The feel of the keys are solid. However, the keys take a small fraction of a second for the key to register, so make sure the key registers before typing the next key.
Verdict
The Personal Banker is a basic financial calculator. I really like the folding design on this calculator and how the keys work. Unfortunately, the high price point of $50 (see source) and it's basic set of functions (arithmetic, percent, time value of money, but no cost-sell-margin solver, amortization, statistics, logarithms, or exponents) did not help sales of the Personal Banker.
It is a good collector item, since vintage solar-powered Texas Instruments financial calculators yield premium prices.
Source
Woerner, Joerg. "Texas Instruments TI-2600 Personal Banker" Datamath. Updated July 22, 2002. Retrieved January 23, 2021. http://www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/PersonalBanker.htm
On Sunday, we'll take another trip back in time.
Eddie
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