How Did This Happen?

https://www.justanswer.com/sip/Sharp?

https://global.sharp/blog/2017/04/13/10317/

I've never got a good answer from "justanswer.com", and, you have to pay to find out that they are useless.

Are you sure it's a "Sharp LC MATE EL328G"? Google can't find any results.

Sorry..my bad..it is a Sharp ELSI MATE EL_326G.

Last letter was faded so I just did the best I could.

Here is a link.

I don't think they had GPS back then for calculators.(1985 or so,I think)

The alpha characters used could not be made with the numbers only.

Here is a link:

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Sharp+ELSI+MATE+EL_326G&t=newext&atb=v313-1&ia=web

Sorry HiTek, but, I think you're seeing things:-

This is clearly a seven segment display:-

With only 8 digits:-

I think you can make most letters with a seven segment display, but I think you'll struggle to come up with a three letter city name.

That is exactly why I wish I had taken a picture..hard to believe it otherwise,but I know what I saw.I was stone cold sober,and wide awake,and my vision is 20/20.

If this was a preprogrammed in memory,it had to be in NVRAM because it had been many years without power.

It only displayed it one time.

Go Figure!

I think you're failing to appreciate the physical limitations of what your calculator screen can display.

This is not a "pixel" display:-

Look at the shapes of the "lozenges" of the seven segments + decimal point.

The screen can only display eight characters each made with the seven segments plus decimal point.

As I said,seeing is believing,but thinking inside the box is deceiving.A picture is worth a thousand words,and wish I had one.Some will consider this like a UFO sighting,or Big foot.

It really doesnt matter.Opinions do not affect reality.. whether you beleive it or not,I know what I saw.I also know the physical limitaions of the 7 segment display.

That is what is so strange about it...it should not have been able to display what I saw.I did a double take when I saw it,then another double take on my first double take.How did it segment a segment? It would not have been so strange if it had been a pixel display.

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.(Sherlock Holmes.---AC Doyle).

Was it one of these towns?

Maybe a quantum fluctuation in your medulla oblongata.

I guess I will have to ask the shoe shine guy.

If he don't know,I give up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7udsYPVhl6Y

Actually, the probability of recognizable outcomes with a 7 segment display is much higher than organizing a few hundred or thousand pixels into something recognizable. Do you remember a decimal point?

Can we assume you purchased a lottery ticket?

Ely, Cambridgeshire, UK?

Perhaps it has been laying around so long it has gained some minimal sentiency...is it still working? It might be possible that it has grown whiskers and has attained the ability to communicate in some way...We might have to dissect it and perform an exploratory forensic pathology procedure(EFPP)....

It still works well and is very intuitive.

A really good design for a non scientific calculator.

我们被发现了，对亨特和乔·拜登的支票停止付款

Too late,the checks have already cleared.

واقعاً، ما همچنان در حال قطع چک های جو بایدن هستیم.

I couldn't find anything in Sharp websites and the user manual is just two pages long with no information regarding power-on-display.

I did find a website that sold service manuals but you have to pay for it (your calculator was there for $13+). If you're still interested the website is manuals-in-pdf.com.

regards,

Vulcan

My microwave oven doesn't have any alpha characters on the keypad, but it displays such things as "ENJOY YOUR MEAL". So far, it hasn't said which city it's in, though.

An 11 digit code is now used in the USA.The last 4 are used by a machine to sort the mail into the delivery sequence so the delivery person does not come in early and sort to delivery sequence.The 4 number sequence is seldom displayed on the letter,but sometimes it is.

This was produced at a time when manufacturers were adding programming and other functions to these little calculators, including dual function keys and other keyboard tricks...this data might have been added at some time in the past, and activated by some combination of keyboard touches...

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/handheld-electronic-calculators

Using your stated location, I have discovered that you are in the car park of the Nikola Tesla memorial:-

But that really hasn't helped with "city name"?

Does anyone know why it matters?

To me,it matters:Just too much info out there,and someone is gathering it for some purpose,and have been for many many years without consent or knowledge.I am not doing anything wrong,and don't plan to,but I do not want someone following my every step 24/7.That would be called stalking if there was not so much $$ to gain from it.Info is power;power is $$. Peeping Toms are arrested,why not secret trackers?

There was a glitch in the Matrix.

Now we understand what "Terminator" has been warning us about for decades, it all started with an old calculator.

The really strange part is this calculator was in the dark the entire time it was in the drawer,with the pouch closed.

As soon as I opened the cover,and exposed the solar array to light,about a 2 second delay,it displayed the message, like the fish said when it bumped into the concrete wall:"Dam!"---I wish I had taken a picture. .

It has not done it since,which indicates to me that it is a boot up message from a totally dead calculator,but since GPS was not in use at the time,how did it know it's location?There is no antenna,externally or internally that I could find,not even a fractal antenna,which was not in the public domain at the time.No internet connections,etc.

I was once considered paranoid because I talked to myself,but now I see I was just ahead of my time. now people walk around talking to themselves and no one really pays any attention to them.

Even a squirrel can't pick out all the nuts now.

" Curiouser and curiouser" said Alice...

It shouldn't be too hard to repeat the circumstances in which this occurred...operation deep sleep commence...we will awaken on video live event...

I would have to blank out the solar cell for a extended period,by putting metal tape over the solar cell,but I do not want to wait 25 years for the result.

Maybe you gave them that information when you ordered it and it was stored in memory.

Such a concept would be of no value if the owner were to have moved address, or the owner were to have changed.

Sadly,no. I was hoping to find the name on the list.That would have put my mind at ease.

Well,I will just consider it to be a one-of-life's mysteries and I will not waste any more head space on it.

Thanks to everyone for their valuable time and efforts on this.

I have a desktop solar calculator that needs to be cleared after sitting in the dark for a long time. It always shows numerals, though, usually a full screen. Solar cell power up to the display encoder could be disorganized, based on firmware, routines to prevent you from losing your work for brief power shortages, like clouds, or other transient environmental factors. Early CMOS gate circuits were easily influenced by static charges.

What is your city name? I see only Lat Lon and too lazy to look it up...

AS I said in post #15 The Lat Long numbers place him in the car park of the Nikola Tesla memorial.

HiTek is too paranoid careful to give us his city name.

"I knew I was crazy" said the squirrel when he read that "You are what you eat".

I move around a lot,so I do not have a fixed address.Besides,you do not have a Need to know.

And yet, the Sharp knows....

Have you checked the calculator for tampering? Remember last week when you noticed that black car following you on the highway? Perhaps your Sharp LC MATE calculator now has a "SuperSnooper 2000" PC board inside the calculator case. After all of these CR4 postings, perhaps "they" want to keep an eye on you.

Since we don't know your city, this is a guess.

Perhaps there ARE some numbers that double as alpha characters.

8 could also be an 'B'

E, I bet it does have an 'E' to indicate 'Exponent'

1, could also be a 'I'

0 could be zero or 'O' or 'D'

5 could be an 'S'

2 could be a 'Z'

And if you have any segments that don't light up reliably, who knows?

If you're prepared to accept a mixture of upper and lower case and a few "oddities",

you can do them all. I think this was a German site hence the extra four characters.

don't know if anybody remembers typing certain numbers on a calculator then turning the calculator upside down but maybe this happened to HiTek.
type in 71077345 reads shelloil
07734 reads hello
40443 reads Error
Obviously the shape of the numbers on the display effect the display as letters but it could be that the display was read upside down and the numbers appeared as letters.. just my 2 cents !!

I'll see your 2 cents and raise you 10cents.I was not standing on my head or holding it upside down.I was stone cold sober,no drug usage,and fully awake.I wish I had taken a picture.Too bad for me I didn't..nobody's going to believe this without proof,but I know what I saw,and it doesn't matter who believes it or not.Just thought there might be a logical conclusion about how it happened,but there appears to be none,so I will simple rest with what I know and consider it one of life's mysteries.

"When you have eliminated all which is is possible,then whatever remains,however improbable,must be the truth"Arthur Conan Doyle