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HP Calculator Department Closing
Beans writes "Today is a sad day for the engineering calculator world. HP calculator department is closing. www.calc.org has the scoop. Leaving employees just announced it on comp.sys.hp48. You can check google groups for the original posts."
no need to press enter afther 'This', and you need just 2 '+'.
cheers
There are all sorts of hacks you can do to a TI graphic calc, including the installation of backlights, remote controls, overlocking, memory expansions, and homemade link cables. I don't think we need complain about the lack of hackable calcs, even though HP is gone.
I'm the stranger...posting to
My history with HP...
I've been using my 11c since around 1987 (I actually got a second one in 1989, but it croaked about two years ago). It's been my favorite calculator since I got it. I've owned lots of calculators, including a casio 8700g, a TI-89, and my current HP48-gx. They're all fine, but I use my 11c more than anything else (I can do almost everything faster with it). Without any text entry/dispaly, it can do most everything I require on a daily basis; it can be programmed (203 steps, 4-level subroutine depth) to do more complex tasks, has more storage than I normally need (21 locations). It doesn't look fancy (no LCD matrix), so it could fool any of my math teachers into thinking it was an 'ordinary' calculator (now remember this was '87, and it had already been out for 6 years). It is by far and away the most useful single (i.e. never replaced) piece of electronics that I use on a daily basis. HP you have served me well, and will be missed (from the calculator business). I don't know what I will do when this HP-11 dies. Maybe I should keep a lookout on ebay.
A great resource on older HP calculators can be found at: http://www.hpmuseum.org
Common TI misconception. RPN also eliminates the need for parens.
Try (5 + 3) * (6 + 1).
TI: 5 + 3 = * ( 6 + 1 ) =
HP: 5 E 3 + 6 E 1 + *
Assuming my TI keystrokes are correct (I haven't
used one for 20 years), that's two less keystrokes
for this simple example.
I run hpcalc.org and would like to clarify this article.
HP is not ceasing the production of calculators. Instead, HP has shut down the department that develops new calculators.
This is nothing unusual. In the mid-1990's, HP already effectively shut down calculator development for several years.
The manufacture of calculators is completely separate from the development, and production will continue.
Another problem -- in grade school we used scientific calculators, high school, graphing calculators ...
... I hope its different somewhere else :) I've often wondered -- when there would be an emergency engineering situation where neither calculators nor books are avaliable (a situation that coresponds to testing).
Then you get to college and their so afraid people will cheat (by storing notes in their calculators) -- its no calculators for most classes -- and when they're absoultley necessary -- a shitty scientific is allowed
This is how it is at UCR atleast
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
According to hpcalc.org, it's the *Australian* HP calculator group that's closing. Is that the entirety of HP's calculator development operation?
IIRC, the HP-41 was developed at a facility in Oregon. Did they move the whole group to Australia?
Anyone from HP available to comment, please?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I still have my HP-41CV. I've had it since HP first released it. This little baby was THE calculator in its time. I went so far as to do assembly language programming on it (required special hardware). My 41 still sits on my desk for whenever I need to do some quick math.
Recently, I needed to buy a calculator for my daughter. The school specified a certain TI model. So I bought her a Hewlett-Packard calculator. I refuse to let the school dictate what companies I will do business with. Besides, TI calculators are junk.
-- Will program for bandwidth
With RPN you will never have to use bracketed notation. The stack can very easily take care of all of that. You simply work across the rows of fractions and functions, nomatter how complex of bracketed it might be to write down. This is the beauty of RPN.
It just happen that it maps across to hardware and a stack much easier than any other system and that's why HP orignally went with RPN.
48GX - IR and a card slots (to add memory, or buy cards with things such as chemistry, etc.)
48G+ - Same as GX, but cheaper but no card slot. Best bet for just about anybody since it's only $83.
Check out this online reseller. It's the cheapest I've found when I briefly looked around. It's where I bought my HPGX 4 years ago for $213. It's amazing how prices have gone down.
There is a comparison page on geekazoid about various Palm calculators, RPN and otherwise.
It should be a good indication of the excellent design and utilty of the HP calculators that it has been so imitated... Of course, some of that has to do with the sturdy hardware- it is quite remarkable what can be done to an HP calc and still have it work perfectly...
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
You can breathe easy... HP calculators aren't going away, just their development team. Production of the existing line is apparently going to carry on for some time.
HP is going to hell in a handbasket. They have sold or spun off all of the divisions that made HP's reputation in the first place.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat