Featured Need help identifying.

My friend has a calculator we cant find info on anywhere. if anyone knows what this is please respond. We know it is "popular science" calculator, not solar, 1991 or later.

edit: popular science bought it from someone else *maybe* and modified it *maybe*, it was finished being perfected in 1991 *maybe* and the manual didn't show half of the buttons *maybe*, so that is maybe why it doesn't show up

 

"Popular Science" is a magazine (now totally digital online). I suspect this may have been a premium gift for subscribing, not actually made by Popular Science. These were typically inexpensive items.

 

I found one for sale on eBay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/186411020889

Since letters instead of numbers are on the keys, it seems that this might be sort of a personal digital assistant (also called just pda), and the calculator functions are just part of what it could do. Those were very popular in the 1990s.

I also had the thought it could have been a premium gift for subscribing, as @2manybooks wrote.

 

thanks this is really helpful!