Slashdot Mirror
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."
Having used my HP49 for quite some time now I have to say that it really is a great piece of engineering.
It is true that the main usage field for HP calculators is engineering and science, but in my opinion HP should have tried to sell more calculators to high school students and schools, because if someone is used to use TIs he is unlikely to switch to HP unless forced (after all, 170$ for an HP49g is not exactly cheap).
It's a pity to see the HP calcs go. Let's hope the HP calculator community keeps being vital.
I've been using HP calculators since I was in grade 5. I remember the first day I received my trusty old 32SII. It was awkward at first, but RPN grew on me very fast. I continued to use this calculater, learning every function for it that I could. I used to laugh at my classmates for not even being able to add 1 + 2 on my calculater. It allowed me to be both pretentious and productive at the same time. It gave me a new unconventional way to look at the problems at hand.
Come university, I went out and splurged for my 48GX. Although I have yet to take the time to learn all of this beast-of-a-calculater's functionality, I know that if I did I would be even more productive. HP calculators are truly ingenious tools.
One thing I must say though is that I don't think it's fair that some educational institutions *make* students buy other more conventional calculaters. Specially in the fields and engineering and computer science. Students miss out by using the old-fashioned calculator, eg: the TI-8[69?]. Students learn and become dependent on their calculaters as they don't ever learn different ways of attacking the given problem. Blame the schools for not letting their students use a real calculater.
1.) Standardized testing and exams. For both of these in college, a lot of the time you will be required to use a standard graphics calculator. When that happens, having a high-end TI or HP calc is very nice.
2.)Speed. Maybe it's just me, but I find I can enter numbers a lot faster on my TI-83+ than I can on my Revo Plus, which has a keyboard, stylus, and a variety of graphics calculator apps which really blow the 83+ out of the water.
I'm the stranger...posting to
The Palm has serious limitations on screen size that prevent getting a useful number of keys on the touch screen, in addition to having a touch screen instead of the fine feel of the HP 11C/28C/32SII keys. (I haven't touched one of the newer 48/49 series, so I can't respond to someone claiming the 49G had squishy keys.)
I thought about trying to emulate the 11C/12C on the Palm, but the 11 keyboard is too large to fit on the screen, without even thinking about the fact that the keys each have three functions on them.
The holistic experience of using one of these fine calculators is just not easy to achieve on a Palm.
I don't care about graphing or solving equations or matrices or playing Quake on my calculator, I just want something with all the mathematical functions I need, plus RPN, that doesn't make me curse. The mid-range HPs are great for me.
I think we can all agree it's no contest - neither sharp nor casio calcs are near as programmable or hackable as TIs - even if you think that TI calc are edsels compared to HPs, everything else is pretty much a horse-drawn carriage compared to TI.
I'm the stranger...posting to
One of the things I wanted to do when my HP48G dies (which might be never) or when I find a broken HP calculator is to figure out how to build a snap on, or maybe a wireless linked, keyboard to the Palm platform. I know it's possible, it just might need a little PIC chip doing the translations. That calculator was always with me through my EE degree, and we used to joke that the engineering jackets used to have oversized inside pockets to store them perfectly.
A palm with the HP keys would be the ultimate. The tactile feedback on the 48GX is incredible and allowed me to "know" I did a calculation right, whereas the other ones and later models TI lacked that positive "thunk" feel.
Anyone wanna send me a busted HP? :)
..don't panic