The Little Professor

I didn’t have one but my friend did. I remember the bright golden yellow color and the red LED screen. I was jealous. It was so cool and fancy.

The Little Professor was a backward functioning calculator that was released in 1976 by Texas Instruments. It would ask a question and you’d answer.

3 + 4 = ? 3 x 4 = ? 4 – 3 = ? 12 ÷ 3 = ?

A new problem will pop up if you were right. EEE would flash if you got it wrong. You had two more chances to find the answer right, then it would display the answer for a good long time so you could ponder the solution. After ten problems, it would display your score.

It came with a booklet called ‘Fun with Math Facts’ that included games such as Jackpot, Winter Numberland, Flying Loopers and Nim Wits. We never played games like that with it. We used it when we played school and sometimes pretended it was a calculator.

The Little Professor did not help me learn multiplication tables. It would have been good for that.

Millions were sold. The Little Professor goes on and on. A solar version is available at Amazon. There is an app version in Google Play store that was updated in 2022. You can buy one on eBay for between $5 and $35.

I have no desire to buy one. I learned my lesson after bringing home an Apple IIe. I saw a perfectly good and ancient Apple IIe sitting outside a used computer store. There was a sign declaring it free for the taking! So I took it home and there it sat until I pulled off all the keys. I have a vague recollection that I had a craft project in mind. The lifeless beige body ended up in the dumpster. I’m pretty sure I tossed the keys too.

Math Magic and  WIZ-A-TRON were cousins of the Little Professor. Instead of presenting a problem to solve, the youngster entered the problem and solution. The device said if the answer was right or wrong. WIZ-A-TRON was a Math Magic with a different face place. I never came across either. It doesn’t seem like a fun toy to enter the problem and solution. I can see why the Little Professor was the victor.