During one of our weekend trips to New York City in the early 1990s, Jay and I stumbled upon an electronics shop in Times Square that was selling about a dozen of these unusual Casio calculators for $25 apiece. These calculators had an abundance of features, the most extraordinary of which was a touch-sensitive display, allowing a user to enter handwritten data, names, maps, etc. directly to memory! Lord knows why, but neither of us purchased one of these. Little did we know, we’d be kicking ourselves for the next decade for not doing so.

But just a few days ago, I travelled into a well-visited area of Manhattan, and lo and behold, there it was…amidst junky portable CD and mp3 players sat a boxed Casio IF-8000. The box was a little worn here and there, but the device itself was in pristine shape. 30 dollars allowed me to exit the shop with Diary in hand, complete with new batteries.

The flagship of Casio Super Memory-Computer line of handheld organizers, we dub the IF-8000 the “Grandfather of PDAs” like today’s Palm Pilot and Handspring. This handheld computer features many functions found on today’s PDAs, including telephone, appointment and miscellaneous data storage, business calculator functions and even BASIC programming capability! Submit alphanumeric input via the traditional keypad on the left or via the membrane keys on the right.

These features are trivial when compared to the best capability of all: an image input function handled by a stylus and a touch-sensitive screen!! Yes, this handheld computer is historically significant in that it’s the first device of its kind to use a touch screen to store input. This input can even be stored on virtual screens, expandable to a 4×4 window! This input can also be stored alongside data entered via keypad.

Unfortunately, the IF8000 was short-lived though its impact on computers and calculators was no doubt significant. We’re proud to have one of these in our collection and learned that we’ll never walk away from a unique electronic device again.