West German Texas Instruments TI-74S

This TI handheld computer is a bit of a mystery to us. It’s the TI-74 S, aka the Hamburg-Mannheimer. It was sold in Germany, we’re guessing around 1985 or so. This little device has a ten-pin port in the top, and accepts cartridges in the upper right corner. We found this one holding a 256K cart, also labelled with Hamburg-Mannheimer. Its all dark-gray plastic construction is a departure from the status-quo light gray plastic and metal handhelds sold by Casio and Sharp at the time. UPDATE: Several folks emailed us to say that Hamburg-Mannheimer is a German insurance company so we presume actuaries or appraisers used these gadgets to calculate rates.

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