Latest Emacs and calc

[James Engel]

I am using  Emacs 26.1 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.24.23)
on linux and when I attempt to enter number into calc I get the following error

Key sequence M-y starts with a non-prefix key ESC

The same version on mac does not show the error and works fine.
What does this error mean? Any way to fix it. Do I have use any special compile 
option?
I also tried version 24, 25, and 27 all give the same error.

Thanks
   Jim Engel