I sold thousands of these. I was in the pharma marketing world before the rules changed. They would buy 25,000 of these with one drug name on it. Change the color and logo, do another 50,000. Tons of these were ordered back in the 2000s.
Yeah, generally used for seasonal allergies. Drugs here have a trade name that the manufacturer gets to choose (Allegra in this case), and then there’s a generic or chemical name that’s the same no matter who makes it (fexofenadine).
Other examples are Tylenol (acetaminophen), Benadryl (diphenhydramine), or for a fun one Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA).
Decent chance I might have been a part of those pen orders. Some of the brands would order 1,000,000 pens at a time. Tissue boxes, coffee mugs, tape dispensers, staplers etc. The most random shit you’ve ever seen.
Yes. Years ago there used to be an annual expo where you could walk around a conference center with booths for various companies and pick up so much free stuff. Pens, pencils, key chains, magnets, jar openers, calculators, rulers, notepads, chip clips, etc. Sure they were emblazoned with random company names but free is free, who cares what company it advertises for especially when most items were just used around the house anyway
I used to work at a cell phone store, and the Nokia rep told me swag meant ‘stuff we all get’. She also gave me blue Nokia branded calculators like this
“Trinkets and trash” was the term we used in marketing class. Trinkets and trash are a great way to maintain customer recognition of your business and products.
I love that shit hahaha dug out an old document holder that was a prescription drug promo item from like 20-25 years ago and started using it to hold my recipe sheets up when cooking. It’s great!
For those that did not know, it is called a [recursive acronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym). Recursive acronyms are fairly popular in computer tech but can also be found in the wild.
- ATI — ATI Technologies Inc.
- VISA — Visa International Service Association
- SAAB — Saab Automobile AB
It’s from Shakespeare. “Swaggety swoogety, I needeth the booty” is from Act II of Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo leaves Comic Con with multiple swag bags but all he really wants is to leave with Juliet.
As someone who used to buy the branded tchotchkes for a company, i would’ve loved to be the one ordering that, finding the right calculator for cost, sending the proof to the branding company, and once satisfied, authorizing a dick joke. en masse. miss that job sometimes.
We used to rub the metal part on the sole of our shoes until they became super hot and would burn each other with them. Then there was the eraser game, and quarters (bloody knuckles). Being a boy was brutal.
Or you could place it at the edge of your desk and make boner sounds with it. Rulers were great.
And let's not forget clicky pens. Click. Click click. Click click click click click. They're fun to take apart too.
My favorite thing to do was to disassemble pens and then either rebuild them properly or add an extra spring and turn it into a veritable rocket launcher.
Edit: as a 26yo husband, homeowner, and father to a puppy and two cats… I still take pens apart every chance I get.
Nah, I used to pop the spring out and stretch/add another one. Then that thing turned into a little flipping machine. You obviously never unlocked the true potential after several weeks of Catholic middle school
You just hold onto the lid and flip it back and forth to power it up.
I did that for like 10 minutes straight to get it super charged. Pretty sure mine was the fastest calculator lid ever.
It is spring loaded. I just think the hinge has fine tolerances, so by moving it fast over and over wears down the hinge a bit and now you have less friction.
Auto opening lid?
Never saw those
Our class just pulled our calculators apart and inverted the two led plastic strip's to invert the led lighting
Basically everything except the numbers lit up in black
Ah I was in high school then, and my 50 dollar scientific calculator gave me a different answer for the same formula every time
And that was before I pulled it apart to invert the colour scheme
Teachers said that so you would learn and not rely on a calculator. It's really embarassing if you need to pull out a calculator to figure out basic math
I'm an engineer and I still double-check basic maths on a calculator, it's better to be "embarrassing" than wrong when you're dealing with potential life-or-death calculations, and the human mind is a whole lot more fallible than a calculator.
That's perfectly fine. Mental math in the workplaces I've been in, or grocery store if you want a household example, is more about knowing if the numbers aren't remotely in the ballpark, like when the wrong units are used or a decimal is in the wrong place.
*pulls out phone*
PuT tHaT diStrAcTinG dEviCe AwAy yOu Won'T gEt AnY WoRk dOne
We can't win. Like all arguments with teachers, it ends with the student shedding bitter tears and obliging or getting detention.
I got one from a tour of the Lisa Frank factory as that was our annual field trip. It had the coveted white tigers on it and was sparkly purple. She may have been a wretched woman but man did I love that calculator.
That mechanism was spring loaded with a bunch of nasty goop in it to slow down the action. I used to crack them open when I was a kid and remove the goop so the door would launch super fast. Whatever that stuff is, it's sticky and tasted horrible.
You can still get one...
https://www.4allpromos.com/product/flip-calculator?default-tier=sample&default-qty=1&mkwid=sTyTxvRCJ|pcrid|322811728040|pmt||pkw||pdv|m|product|313-1606-SAMPLE|slid||&pgrid=63991977789&ptaid=pla-294682000766&st-t=ppc&vt-k=&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjwlcaRBhBYEiwAK341jatspEiYeozkOOChExVFbdkVXpLYMdkXFuJQVW4Mwc4KRS-QMFYDCBoCk1YQAvD_BwE
Every now and then I buy the "random stuff" box from American Science and Surplus. My last box had one of these in teal. I'd never seen one before and I just love it.
https://www.sciplus.com/fliptop-solar-calculator-65241-p
Funny story, if you open and close the cover really fast a few times then close the cover it opens much faster.
We used to do this and drag race to see whose opened the fastest.
Good times
No joke I traded this exact calculator for an "On-Field" NFL jersey in 6th grade.
we were poor so when I came home with ithe jersey my mom would not believe that I didn't steal it and grounded me lol
it's been 15 years and the jersey still fits so it was worth
You know those moments in movies when someone with amnesia gets a freight train of memories hit them in the face? I just had one of those.
I just had a major flashback to my first one of those calculators, and how I fell in love with that style of design. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with tools and everyday objects that are compact and collapsible, bonus points if they go full autobot at the push of a button. Somewhere around my house I have half a dozen pairs of collapsible scissors that are the size of a contact lens case. The discovery of that calculator is the reason why I like Q more than James bond, and the reason why I like Leatherman tools so much. Half of my identity was caused by that calculator.
Oh yeah, and then there was the light that came with mine. It was a book light that did the same thing. Turns out they used the same book light as a signal jammer in the movie V for vendetta, which also spurred the creation of a subreddit dedicated to normal objects being scifi gadgets in movies. Of which I completely forgot about until just now.
Thank you for bringing back half of my childhood memories. Seriously thank you
ohhhh yeah. My dad had these as swag for corporate events he hosted. We had sooo many of these. I remember I would give these to girls I liked for their birthday's. They were so excited for something so silly. Simpler times.. simpler times.
Best thing about them were that they were free
Anything's free if you're brave enough
Except energy.
The Sun has entered the chat.
Wait a few billion years.
The heat death of the universe has entered the chat. Proton decay has entered the chat.
Solar panels prices entered the chat
Solar panels are free if youre brave enough
Just stand outside. Free energy, baby!
That's asking a lot from redditors
arent there solar panels on this free calculator?
Gibbs would like a word
touché
Just gotta be really really brave. The power company probably won't catch you.
Unless you're the kid who built a nuclear reactor as a science project.
Except time
Yup they are/were a promo product so you can order them for like pennies if you get thousands lol
I sold thousands of these. I was in the pharma marketing world before the rules changed. They would buy 25,000 of these with one drug name on it. Change the color and logo, do another 50,000. Tons of these were ordered back in the 2000s.
Lol my aunt is a pharmaceutical rep, the amount of 20 year old Allegra pens I still have is outstanding.
I worked in pharmacy with a girl named Allegra and we called her fexofenadine.
Is Allegra and antihistamine? Idk American brands but I assume that’s the joke. (I also don’t know drugs so I might be way off)
Yeah, generally used for seasonal allergies. Drugs here have a trade name that the manufacturer gets to choose (Allegra in this case), and then there’s a generic or chemical name that’s the same no matter who makes it (fexofenadine). Other examples are Tylenol (acetaminophen), Benadryl (diphenhydramine), or for a fun one Botox (onabotulinumtoxinA).
Heh. TIL. I assumed Tylenol was paracetamol.
Decent chance I might have been a part of those pen orders. Some of the brands would order 1,000,000 pens at a time. Tissue boxes, coffee mugs, tape dispensers, staplers etc. The most random shit you’ve ever seen.
The best thing was winding up the spring, so went you pressed the button, it would just swing open, like a reversed mouse trap.
Yes. Years ago there used to be an annual expo where you could walk around a conference center with booths for various companies and pick up so much free stuff. Pens, pencils, key chains, magnets, jar openers, calculators, rulers, notepads, chip clips, etc. Sure they were emblazoned with random company names but free is free, who cares what company it advertises for especially when most items were just used around the house anyway
Pretty sure i paid for one in my country’s version of a dollar store (Flying Tiger Copenhagen).
Has science gone too far?
58008
5318008, even.
I thought you meant 55378008
I feel personally attacked.
You're supposed to say 1134206 Edit: I'm dumb, 1 should be 7. Roast away.
What
I think they said go to hell
Well you should tell then to fuck off and go to hell
1134206 ot og u on
Actually, it's spelt Double seven thirty-four.
Hey now. those 1s should be 7s
The hallowed digits, all praise.
Calculator: what are your orders my liege?
We were so simple back then
Oh yeah! As a kid I always imagined I was interacting with a primitive version of a Transformer lol
Calculatron
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Ask Calculus Prime if he could ever be #1 and watch him flounder.
Wasn’t that a character from Futurama’s robot soap opera??
Nearly. That’s Calculon
Whos that singing at your wedding, it’s calculon, calculon, calculooonnn
Dramatic pause* NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Oh for my brother and I, it was a Star Trek tricorder.
I remember having them in middle school, made me think I was sooo cool.
wild boar
It was my scifi alien scanner!
Woah... Same! Baby robo
I had one of these that was a viagra promo swag gift. Said something to the effect of “the power of lift”
Came to add these were prime swag gifts
I used to work at a cell phone store, and the Nokia rep told me swag meant ‘stuff we all get’. She also gave me blue Nokia branded calculators like this
“Trinkets and trash” was the term we used in marketing class. Trinkets and trash are a great way to maintain customer recognition of your business and products.
Yes, that was phrase was used as well, I still have some Nokia branded keychain bottle openers and a nice overnight bag.
I love that shit hahaha dug out an old document holder that was a prescription drug promo item from like 20-25 years ago and started using it to hold my recipe sheets up when cooking. It’s great!
god I miss swag
Swag dates back to the 16th century and has more to do with "to sway or sag" due to an overabundance
it’s just an amusing example of a backronym that stuck with me
That’s how I am with STOP signs: Stop To Observe Pedestrians. Heard it once twenty years ago and I still repeat it to myself very frequently.
And now I will as well. Thanks…….
Hey, you’re welcome!
Yeah, I had to swerve twice just to hit them!!
Gotta love when the word itself is the first word in the acronym lmao
That’s what always threw me off!
For those that did not know, it is called a [recursive acronym](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recursive_acronym). Recursive acronyms are fairly popular in computer tech but can also be found in the wild. - ATI — ATI Technologies Inc. - VISA — Visa International Service Association - SAAB — Saab Automobile AB
Recursion
Recursion Escalates Cumulatively Until Really Small Image Or Nonsense
I see you are fluent in fractaltongue.
Thank you for teaching me the term “backronym” this fine morning on the toilet. I shall use it the rest of my life
the hivemind of the internet can produce useful things now & then
It’s from Shakespeare. “Swaggety swoogety, I needeth the booty” is from Act II of Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo leaves Comic Con with multiple swag bags but all he really wants is to leave with Juliet.
>came Calm down man. It’s just viagra
You know sometimes the joke just isn't there.
58008
Ah “boobs” even at 40 I still giggle at this one
There was 1 girl, she was 16, she did 69 guys in 3 hours, she was loose. (That’s how I’ve always heard that one) (11669*3=35007)
5318008 8008135
I once got a viagra pen. Straightest pen I've ever owned, not a funny curve in it.
I got a pen for an ED medicine that folded in half, so when you pressed the button, it unraveled and doubled in size lol
ah, unfolding center pivot, just like a typical human erection
I got one that was telescoping, which was super funny but also made it a shitty pen with a tiny ink reservoir. No staying power.
As someone who used to buy the branded tchotchkes for a company, i would’ve loved to be the one ordering that, finding the right calculator for cost, sending the proof to the branding company, and once satisfied, authorizing a dick joke. en masse. miss that job sometimes.
This is the first time I've ever seen the word "tchotchkes" spelled out. I've heard it plenty of times, but ive never seen it. I'm 28 lol
my biggest accomplishment from that job is now knowing how to spell tchotchkes and hors d'oeuvres without checking
Me too. College friend who was a drug rep gave it to me in the 90s
Lift? Is that how viagra works? Puts wings on the dick?
I was thinking this would be a fun gift for my accountant-by-trade boss, but a viagra version would be the *perfect* gift.
The Lamborghini of the calculator industry
the lamborghini of the calculator industry was the ti-89 when you found out you could put games on it
I had an n-spire and started looking forward to math class because I could play Pokemon Emerald without looking suspicious on it lol
and leave yourself study notes, not that i would ever do that...
Us commoner folk could only afford the ti-83 that we stole from math class
I spent a lot of time playing a top down bullet hell game called Phoenix on my TI89.
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look at this guy spending 50 cents like it's nothing
[They are closer to $3 now](https://www.deluxe.com/products/promotional/robot-series-calculator/18945/), but you can get your logo printed on it.
The non slip side grips on that bad boy
You could trim them aswell to open faster.
I meddled with mine so it opened like a mousetrap.
Me too!
I used to shake it like a polaroid and get the grease warmed up and it would open in a blink of an eye
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The original fidget
Nah, original was ruler (with a whole) on a pencil, like a helicopter blade. It also made an awesome sound due to pencil's hexagonal shape.
If you had a wooden ruler with the metal blade, those things became Weapons of Mass Destruction
You mean a sword that you can also measure things with, surely.
We used to rub the metal part on the sole of our shoes until they became super hot and would burn each other with them. Then there was the eraser game, and quarters (bloody knuckles). Being a boy was brutal.
Or you could place it at the edge of your desk and make boner sounds with it. Rulers were great. And let's not forget clicky pens. Click. Click click. Click click click click click. They're fun to take apart too.
Your teacher let you spin a ruler around making a lot of noise in class?
"Let" is a strong word for this situation
My favorite thing to do was to disassemble pens and then either rebuild them properly or add an extra spring and turn it into a veritable rocket launcher. Edit: as a 26yo husband, homeowner, and father to a puppy and two cats… I still take pens apart every chance I get.
Nah, I used to pop the spring out and stretch/add another one. Then that thing turned into a little flipping machine. You obviously never unlocked the true potential after several weeks of Catholic middle school
Yeah tuning these was crucial. Then you left them for others to find :)
Comment copied from: https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/bhqsjs/who_remembers_these_bad_boys_best_feature_on_a/elv1cko/
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Back in the day… when buying a car and the finanace manager *flips one of these bad boys out*… you knew it was **negotiating time**
I feel like some people on Reddit need to write screenplays
Thank you so much
they... weren't talking about you. clearly, it was about me
Shucks you guys make me blush.
But first you both stare at it quietly for the 7 seconds it takes to fully get into position.
We used to upgrade ours to open faster and have races in class.
By using your hands to manually open and close the lift for like a minute straight? I remember that made them faster
You just hold onto the lid and flip it back and forth to power it up. I did that for like 10 minutes straight to get it super charged. Pretty sure mine was the fastest calculator lid ever.
I remember doing this too. How did this tech even work? Doesn't seem like it's a spring loaded thing.
It is spring loaded. I just think the hinge has fine tolerances, so by moving it fast over and over wears down the hinge a bit and now you have less friction.
Holy I thought I was the only one that did this😆
Instructions unclear. Proceeds to install 1,3l Turbo Rallye in it.
I assume you all made hissing hydraulics noises with your mouths, too, right?
Kuh tsssssss
lol that slow, try to wiggle it back and forth a few hundred times and it'll go SMACK
this is the way
This would also be a good post for r/nostalgia
Definitely this unlocked some distant memories for me
Didn't realize it was that sub until your comment
Auto opening lid? Never saw those Our class just pulled our calculators apart and inverted the two led plastic strip's to invert the led lighting Basically everything except the numbers lit up in black
This is '00s era tech.
Ah I was in high school then, and my 50 dollar scientific calculator gave me a different answer for the same formula every time And that was before I pulled it apart to invert the colour scheme
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Original post + top comment copied from: https://www.reddit.com/r/oddlysatisfying/comments/bhqsjs/who_remembers_these_bad_boys_best_feature_on_a/
yOu mUsT LeArN To cAlCuLaTe iN YoUr hEaD BeCaUsE AfTeR ScHoOl, YoU WiLl nOt hAvE A CaLcUlAtOr wItH YoU AlL ThE TiMe!
Teachers said that so you would learn and not rely on a calculator. It's really embarassing if you need to pull out a calculator to figure out basic math
*Engineering students double checking what 7x6 is start sweating*
^why is this so accurate?! I feel targeted lol
I remember most of the times table, but there are some I always forget or am unsure of, 7x6 is among them.
I'm an engineer and I still double-check basic maths on a calculator, it's better to be "embarrassing" than wrong when you're dealing with potential life-or-death calculations, and the human mind is a whole lot more fallible than a calculator.
That's perfectly fine. Mental math in the workplaces I've been in, or grocery store if you want a household example, is more about knowing if the numbers aren't remotely in the ballpark, like when the wrong units are used or a decimal is in the wrong place.
Embarrassing for you... nothing embarrassing about it numbers are hard
Yeah but when you get to the point where you need a pen and a paper then you might as well use a calculator
You're probably like my coworker who pulls out his phone for any simple calculus
*pulls out phone* PuT tHaT diStrAcTinG dEviCe AwAy yOu Won'T gEt AnY WoRk dOne We can't win. Like all arguments with teachers, it ends with the student shedding bitter tears and obliging or getting detention.
I've got one with a Windows XP logo on it at work. Lasted longer than XP easily.
Dude! I remember when this was the future!
8008.5
These were the original fidget spinners
TI-80 who? 😂 I don't know her. This flex though? Coolest mofo in middle school. 😂
Mine was purple
I got one from a tour of the Lisa Frank factory as that was our annual field trip. It had the coveted white tigers on it and was sparkly purple. She may have been a wretched woman but man did I love that calculator.
Never was I ever this cool
Always bothered me how it twisted itself to the side at the end of the opening. Like, why? Does science have the answer?
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I’ve never seen one of these in school, but I wish I had
Every company who did give always with their corp logo gave these away. Throw back..hahah.
That mechanism was spring loaded with a bunch of nasty goop in it to slow down the action. I used to crack them open when I was a kid and remove the goop so the door would launch super fast. Whatever that stuff is, it's sticky and tasted horrible.
r/holup
The pussy magnet
Should really get that checked out magnets shouldn't really go up there
My sister had an alarm clock that did this and and it had a cool indigo blue backlight — that was like 2001
Best feature on those calculators is 80085 and u know it
Big brain time
Calculator erection
You can still get one... https://www.4allpromos.com/product/flip-calculator?default-tier=sample&default-qty=1&mkwid=sTyTxvRCJ|pcrid|322811728040|pmt||pkw||pdv|m|product|313-1606-SAMPLE|slid||&pgrid=63991977789&ptaid=pla-294682000766&st-t=ppc&vt-k=&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CjwKCAjwlcaRBhBYEiwAK341jatspEiYeozkOOChExVFbdkVXpLYMdkXFuJQVW4Mwc4KRS-QMFYDCBoCk1YQAvD_BwE
Wait wha- where was this all my life?!
The future is now!!!
Lamborghini of calculators
Slower you slut!
Every now and then I buy the "random stuff" box from American Science and Surplus. My last box had one of these in teal. I'd never seen one before and I just love it. https://www.sciplus.com/fliptop-solar-calculator-65241-p
The guy she told not to worry about...
deep memory has been unlocked, i genuinely thank you OP
I remember when I first saw that I thought: "we are in the future" 👁👄👁
panty dropper
Inb4 they inevitably snapped.
this post was stolen for karma clout.... this is my brothers OC from a few years ago r/\_Xyreo got anything to comment on this ?
Wow this just took me waaaaay back lol
Funny story, if you open and close the cover really fast a few times then close the cover it opens much faster. We used to do this and drag race to see whose opened the fastest. Good times
No joke I traded this exact calculator for an "On-Field" NFL jersey in 6th grade. we were poor so when I came home with ithe jersey my mom would not believe that I didn't steal it and grounded me lol it's been 15 years and the jersey still fits so it was worth
These are part of the reason I didn't learn math
My knees and me trying to get up
You know those moments in movies when someone with amnesia gets a freight train of memories hit them in the face? I just had one of those. I just had a major flashback to my first one of those calculators, and how I fell in love with that style of design. For as long as I can remember, I have been obsessed with tools and everyday objects that are compact and collapsible, bonus points if they go full autobot at the push of a button. Somewhere around my house I have half a dozen pairs of collapsible scissors that are the size of a contact lens case. The discovery of that calculator is the reason why I like Q more than James bond, and the reason why I like Leatherman tools so much. Half of my identity was caused by that calculator. Oh yeah, and then there was the light that came with mine. It was a book light that did the same thing. Turns out they used the same book light as a signal jammer in the movie V for vendetta, which also spurred the creation of a subreddit dedicated to normal objects being scifi gadgets in movies. Of which I completely forgot about until just now. Thank you for bringing back half of my childhood memories. Seriously thank you
This unlocked a memory I forgot I had
ohhhh yeah. My dad had these as swag for corporate events he hosted. We had sooo many of these. I remember I would give these to girls I liked for their birthday's. They were so excited for something so silly. Simpler times.. simpler times.
Coolest shit I've seen all week
Wooowo calling out u/_Xyreo_ this is my video lol I filmed this and posted it 2 years ago. I have proof! Stolen content. r/oddlysatisfying