Programmable calculator to use magnetic strips were the HP-41C and TI-59. Continuous memory does not lose its content when the calculator is switched off. With continuous memory the user can, for example, change batteries without losing the entered programs. Compact Cassettes offered a simple, inexpensive alternative to magnetic cards. Usually, an interface module, such as the Casio FA-1, was used to connect the calculator to an ordinary cassette recorder and digital data were encoded as frequency-shift keyed audio signals. Sharp and Hewlett-Packard also sold dedicated micro- or mini-cassette recorders that connected directly to the calculator. These set-ups, while being more practical and
Marchant calculator known as SCM, tried to stay competitive by introducing the SCM Cogito 240SR electronic calculator (designed by Manhattan Project veteran Stan Frankel) in 1965. Within a few years a tidal wave of cheaper electronic calculators had devastated their business, and by the mid-1980s, SCM's typewriter business, too, had been ruined by the advent of inexpensive personal computers used as word processors. The first Marchant calculators differed greatly from their later Silent Speed Proportional Gears machines, which were by far the fastest of their type, running at 1,300 cycles per minute. These machines are of considerable technical interest, and are far