Who knew? Bake it. If that doesn’t work, freeze it.

I bought this calculator recently. It’s a clone of an HP41c.

The calculator arrived with the screen marred by a number of black spots. The supplier explained this can happen with LCD screens but they can usually be fixed by baking to 100c or so. “What?”, I spluttered. Sure enough, the users forum confirmed success in fixing LCD screen black spots with a bake.

So I stuck the calculator in the Aussie sun. I left it in my car under the Aussie sun. Definitely there was improvement. But it was not fixed.

The supplier sent me a new LCD screen. However the old screen was really hard to remove. There was a glue fixing it.

The supplier explained that I should freeze the calculator for a while and the glue would let go. So I did. But it didn’t.

Use a knife, he suggested.

I did and that worked. The old screen is finally out. The new one is in. The calculator has been baked, frozen, knifed and yet – it works! Reverse polish notation is hard to beat!