This beautiful calculator is one of the first BASIC programmable pocket computers from Sharp. Its age is evident from the fact that the display is an early, yellow LCD; that characteristic color is due to an filter that was used to protect early liquid crystal displays from ultraviolet light.

Perhaps the only drawback of these calculators is the fact that there are no keyboard shortcuts; all advanced and scientific functions must be spelled out on the small QWERTY keyboard, making the machine slightly cumbersome to use.

Other than that, the PC-1211 is a pleasant, capable little BASIC calculator. With over two kilobytes of program memory, and efficient tokenized program storage, reasonably complex programs can be built. The external interface is used with a printer/cassette interface, letting the user save programs and create hardcopy output.

The programming model of this calculator is demonstrated by the following implementation of the Gamma function. This program computes the natural logarithm of the Gamma function for all positive and negative arguments to 10 digits of precision:

100:INPUT Z
110:S=SGN Z
120:X=ABS Z
130:G=1
140:IF X>5THEN 180
150:G=GX
160:X=X+1
170:GOTO 140
180:G=X*LN X-X+LN (√(2π/X)/G)+((((1/99/X/X-1/140)/X/X+1/105)/X/X-1/30)/X/X+1)/X/12
190:IF S>0THEN 220
200:RADIAN
210:G=LN (-π/Z/SIN πZ)-G
220:PRINT "LNG(Z)=",G