School supplies from Thrift Drug including "Magic Brain Calculator"

Thrift Drug school supplies ad, Beaver County Times, September 7, 1966

We had educational technology in 1966 too. Thrift Drug, which had stores on Merchant Street and in Northern Lights Shopping Center, sold the "Magic Brain Calculator." According to their ad, the Magic Brain was an "Easy to carry, Easy to use calculating machine that adds, subtracts and multiplies. Eliminates time-consuming mental calculation" [Capitalization and punctuation as in original ad.]

OK. The Magic Brain apparently didn't magically divide, but still a bargain at $0.49. 

Surely, teachers and parents worried that once we starting using such a technological marvel, we'd forget how to do math calculations on our own using those "time-consuming mental calculations." Madness!

Also, note the "See Thru Book Bag," also $0.49 which would be just the thing to carry in current security conscious schools and to NFL games.