I agree with whoever said they are the best talking alarm clock ever 
made. I own 3 of the original one that has the elapse time and 
stopwatch function. I remember paying around $75 for my first one in 
1980, then bought a second from IRTI for half that price when he found 
a case of them somewhere about 3 years later. I then bought one on ebay 
about 10 years ago for $30. All 3 of them are still working just fine. 
One of them is in my desk at work, and reminds me to get the newspaper 
readers off the air each day.

In the pre-computer audio recording software days, I would use the 
elapsed time function set in the 10 second mode to confirm the time of 
voice tracks in my broadcast work.

Those of you who were subscribers to Playback Magazine may remember 
that Ed Potter created a master time tape by recording the 10 second 
mode onto both sides of a cassette. He would then make his master tape 
of the magazine on a copy of that time cassette so that he would be 
able to determine how much time remained on the tape as he added each article.

After he told me about that trick, I did the same thing when I produced 
the newsletter for ARkenstone, and for my ACB affiliate. You wouldn't 
believe how helpful it was to have that information when planning the 
end of side 1. It saved a bunch of backing up in order to create a 
suitable side change point in the middle of an article.

I never owned either the Sharp calculator, or the clock and calculator combo.

-- 
Mike Duke, K5XU