I learned programming around 1985 on one of these Casio pocket computers. It ran Basic interpreter not lisp. Incredible little machine. It looked like this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/143595147094 I probably would not be a software engineer at a top company today without it.
That was my second Casio "calculator" for Uni, loved it. It had a huge display with four lines :-) -- my first one was a Sharp (Radio Shack) with a single line. Both programmable in BASIC.
I can still remember the fog clearing out of my mind when I started to understand what the code was doing. Being able to plan something up, program it and see it work was an absolute blast, a gateway drug to a career still going strong after several decades.
back in 1992, the first calculator I think I ever touched was my father's Elektronika MK-85, which was essentially an "inspired by" copy (externally look alike and similarly programmed, but all the internals designed from scratch in USSR).
Imagine my surprise when many, many years later, I learnt that the pocket calculator had a full PDP-11 (LSI-11 compatible, to be specific) with QBus inside...
Casio did produce a series of those (I read that thanks to this yesterday). Quite impressive to a C environment in your pocket that long ago. Even more impressive how it died silently. In the 90s mainstream all that was left was graphing calc with a basic like dialect.
For me, my Casio FX-502P when at school - totally caught the programming bug from that thing. The cool kids (in the maths sense obviously!) had HPs; RPN and beautifully engineered, but too expensive sadly.
I hate the modern calculators with their 'ANS' nonsense, they can get off my metaphorical lawn.
In the old days buying a calculator with basic meant it went to IT departmemt abd it is me who has to handle the request. Found it funny to deal with hundreds of IBM PC purchase and this one Casio. Still remember how annoying the user is, why I have to see you, write justification and go through approval process for a bloody computer whilst my boss you help him to buy so many PC!
Never saw a lisp one though. Interesting where one can get one for old Tim sake.
I has the opposite thought, I learned programming (in 2001) on a Sharp computer pretty similar but with only one line at a time on the display. This one has four, that would have helped me
