Currency Calculators

January 1, 02002 brought the introduction of bills and notes denominated in a common European currency, the euro (€), which has now replaced the national currencies of 12 European countries.  The twelve "legacy currencies" have been phased out and ceased to be legal tender on (or before) February 28, 02002.  Six-digit exchange rates of each currency against the euro were fixed by European Council action and did not fluctuate over time.  These permanent exchange rates and a need to convert between currencies during the three-year transition period from 01999-02002 made it worthwhile for Texas Instruments to produce a series of eleven calculators preprogrammed with these rates for the European market.

In these calculators, SET and SELECT  keys are used to pick two currencies to be interconverted with the yellow conversion keys at top center.  (The €-2002+ has no SELECT key and converts only between euros and a second selected currency.)  The euro and 11 participating currencies (all except the Greek drachma) are preprogrammed; the user may add four other currencies--I have programmed all of mine for €/$ conversions (exchange rates between the euro and the dollar, however, are not fixed but float over time).

€-1796: 02000 model; solar-powered with battery backup power source.
€-2001: Slightly smaller version introduced c. 01999.
€-2000: Another sllightly smaller version.  This one is not preprogrammed with exchange rates.

€-2002+: 01999 product that can also be preprogrammed with a tax rate for easy commercial calculations.  Note that the conversion keys only allow conversion between € and the selected currency.
€-2003: Similar to the €-2002+ but with full interconversion among sixteen currencies.

€-2004: A desktop printing version of the euro-converter.

Further information (in English) on the €-series may be found at the TI United Kingdom site.

The idea of a euro-converting calculator wasn't restricted to TI, of course.  First up above is the Troika CAR10, a metal calculator which can be programmed for a single currency conversion.  This is a surprisingly heavy calculator which appears here actual size.  Next to it is a single-function calculator distributed in Ireland at the time of the euro's introduction which converts between British pounds (the Irish punt was a currency discarded in favor of the euro) and euros at a fixed rate of .79 pounds/€.  By restricting its capacity to the two conversions, this calculator gets by with only fourteen keys--the lowest of any calculator in my collection.

UCC

If you're interested in currency conversions, try The Universal Currency Converter from xe.com: (This application will send you to xe.com for the answer to your conversion question.)

xe.com  Universal Currency Converter™
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Last revision: 19 March 02003.
This page is Y10K compliant.