Best Printing Calculator in the World, Monroe

In last week’s blog, we highlighted the Monroe Classic and Pro printing calculators and how they were combined to create the Monroe Ultimate, the top heavy-duty printing calculator on the market today.  

This week, we are taking an in-depth look at the unique features that are exclusive to the UltimateX.

Let’s dive in.

IKT - Individual Keyswitch Technology

IKT - Individual Keyswitch Technology was designed specifically with our customers in mind to help reduce the stress in the user’s hand, and to increase speed and efficiency. This drastically reduces errors caused by missed digits or stuck keys when typing.

With IKT technology, there’s no rubber membrane beneath the keyboard. Instead, each key is outfitted with its own rubber dome, eliminating any resistance to key depression that's typically caused by standard membranes.

Rubber sheet which lies beneath the keyboard (left). The small black dots underneath make contact with the printed circuit board (right).

The individual rubber domes exist as part of the keyswitch (left). The black dot (center of each dome) makes contact with the circuit board (right). Without the rubber sheet, resistance is greatly decreased.

The result is the smooth and easy keying in of entries with no need to press hard to register an entry. 

Editing, Inserting Entries and Reprinting Tapes

One of the most popular features of the UltimateX is its ability to edit and reprint tapes for audit trails up to 99 lines. Both our customers and staff find this feature extremely useful whenever they need to edit/insert an entry, and then reprint the paper tape with the corrected entries and updated math. The reprint feature avoids the use of 2-ply paper, in most cases, and the quality of the print on the second sheet. The feature also will maintain the memory for the reprint until you clear the memory and the 2-ply paper will not have the ability to recreate the entries after they have been printed.   

Last year, Monroe had a group of honors students come in from the Rutgers School of Business and challenged them to a race: who could perform a series of calculations quicker, our staff on an UltimateX or students in Excel and the cell phone calculator. 

They were further amazed when they saw how fast and accurately the UltimateX performed over Microsoft Excel and the two cell phone calculators. Mike then used the reprint function to replicate his calculation again before the students had even finished their entries.

You can watch the friendly challenge between Mike Prash and the students here.

Other Features That are Unique to Monroe Heavy-duty Models

The UltimateX, like the Monroe 8130X and Monroe 8145X heavy-duty models, also features a hidden storage compartment that fits a spare paper roll and an emergency backup twin-spooled ribbon. Having this feature saves the user a lot of time from having to make trips to the supply cabinet. The compartment also comes in handy while traveling on business.

Another feature specifically designed for Monroe UltimateX, Monroe 8130X and Monroe 8145X heavy-duty models, is an enclosed paper roll. The enclosed paper prevents the paper from accumulating dust and dirt, which would otherwise be advanced into the printer and causes irreparable damage to it. Over time, using a calculator with an enclosed paper holder will exponentially extend the life expectancy of a printing calculator. Our heavy-duty Monroe printing calculators are the only printing calculators available today that are equipped with this feature.

Putting it All Together - The Ultimate Printing Calculator

Having all of these features in one calculator is why the UltimateX has remained our most popular printing calculator today — even after nine years of production.

During the course of a week, we speak with hundreds of accountants and other financial professionals who tell us how these features in the UltimateX make their lives so much easier. We love to hear that because we understand!

Many of our executives and sales team here at Monroe also use an UltimateX on a daily basis; Jason Marsdale, Monroe’s VP of sales and marketing, says that he loves the UltimateX because he can perform all of his addition and subtraction functions on the right-hand set of keys and the multiplication and division functions on the left-hand set of keys.

“It's like having two different calculators side by side,” he explains. “This has saved me from re-keying all of my math into the calculator when I need to run a quick calculation in between my other work.”

A 52-Year Monroe Veteran Looks at Technology of the Past and the Future

Speaking to Bill Hines, Monroe’s factory service manager, who has been with company for 52 years, it was interesting to learn how the internal technology of Monroe’s calculators have changed over time and what he forsees in the future.

The late 1960s was the zenith of the mechanical calculating era, and to this day, I am still amazed at the complexity of that equipment and the speed at which they operated at and that I could repair them, which was very labor intensive.

The early days of electronic business equipment was very complicated and had many reliability and quality control issues. Over the years, the technology advances in electronics have developed equipment that could only be dreamed of in the mechanical era.

What the future will bring will probably amaze us even more. Only a set of eyes that saw the past and now sees the present, will not take the future in electronics for granted.

— Bill Hines