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I'm not a boomer, but I grew up with pocket calculators -- used them in school. I was also exposed to computers in high school -- writing and running programs written in BASIC. I don't remember much except I didn't demonstrate an aptitude for programming.

[caption id="attachment_8651" align="alignright" width="106"] The classic 1984 Mac calculator DA stayed virtually unchanged until 2002.[/caption]

By the time I picked up the thread of computers again in the 1980s, every desktop system I saw was graphical. By the late 1980s all desktop operating system had a calculator desk accessory -- it was like the one-celled organism of computer programs. It's fair to say the Mac's calculator desk accessory set the bar for everyone else.

[caption id="attachment_8657" align="alignleft" width="118"] Palm Treo 680 smart phone from the Late Pleistocene -- 2004.[/caption]

If the personal computers of the mid-1980s were the writing on the wall for pocket calculators then the cell phones of the late-1990s were "The End." PDAs like the Palm Pilot telegraphed the ending by the mid-1990s. Ironically they were also killed by cell phones.

Pocket calculators still barely survive because, a) boomers who grew up with them still survive, and, b) they can do math but they can't do Facebook -- many teachers bar cell phones with their built in calculators because they can, at the very least, distract students. Click the photos to enlarge them.

Here are some photos of a few Super Robot toys, all mid-1980s vintage, which some family left in a pile by their recycling. Someone had gone to the trouble to rebox the toys in their original compartmentalized styrofoam inserts, and cardboard boxes, but all the packaging was falling apart, and none of the toys I really looked over had all their original bits. So I settled for grabbing one boxed bot, and taking some photos.

One boxed Super Robot : DAIDEJIN

A 1984 Super Robot by Bandai America (Made in Japan) from their Godaikin series of Super Robots. Item #377033. This is a die-cast metal, transforming toy:

"DAIDENJIN, the robot is transformed into DENJIN, the spaceport, with a few moves here and there."

Unfortunately the box, which is in very bad shape, only included Daidenjin, and his two alternate "Big Punch" hands. So I'm missing the Denjin Sword, Denjin Boomerang, Denjin Ball, and the missiles.

According to the original price tag, the toy was purchased at Mannings, a chain of department stores in Hong Kong, and Macau, for $75.00. This one just sold on Ebay, last month -- complete in original box -- for $266.00 US.

Daidenjin, it turns out, is a mecha character from an ancient Super Sentai television series called Denshi Sentai Denziman (1980-1981), Power Rangers-like TV Show made by Toei, hence Toei's copyright credit on the box, along with TV Asahi, and M.C.G. Daidenjin ("giant electic man") was the first transforming robot in a Super Sentai series.