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.
...strike up the violin. TI-89 for life!
I have owned both HP and TI calculators. I have several of each. And I can say, without reservation, that the HP calculators are of the highest quality and last for decades. The TI keypads are doubling up numbers and missing keystrokes in a fraction of that time. This is a sad day when we have to choose between Sharp, TI, and Casio as our big-name calculators.
You remind me of someone saying "I'm glad Ferrari is going out of business. Chevy for life!"
HP of today reminds me of DEC and Lucent. None of these companies seem to be able to market and profit from the fruits of their massive engineering talent. None can dispute the quality of the hardware and software in HP's calculators, but HP are not able to turn it into a long-term successful business unit. HP have spun of most of their best products into the mismanaged and unable to execute Agilent. Note the parallel with Lucent. I don't know why these companies let their best products go adrift but I find it depressing.
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.
I started college in 1981 and HP-41C's where state of the art at the time. You could solve 16 simultaneous equations at your desk, as opposed to walking to the lab to use a mainframe or TRS-80. My girlfriend at the time bought me a top of the line HP-41CX for Christmas and she called it "baby Hewey" (of course I had to marry her after that!)
The were some of us hackers who used a backdoor to do "synthetic programming". One trick was to get the goose to fly backwards. Anybody remember that? How many of us have grown up to be linux/unix hackers? I bet most of us . . .
Oh the good old days . . .
Smokin' Joe
I am signing up for college this january and I still have my old ti-85 with 32k of ram from 94 back in high school. From what I have seen is that the hp calculators are more programmable and more powerfull then TI calcs. I also know my plam m100 is alot more powerfull then either one. My palm has has a much more powerfull processor ( 20 mhz I think) and 2 megs of ram not to mention its alot more programable. I can download python, a lite version of java, as well as free c compilers for it. Perhaps we (as in the fsf community) should write some gnu calculator and mathmatical utilities for it and try to convince palm to focus on this market. My math skills are not quit there to write some of these utilities. Palm is hurting for marketshare and if they could sell palms to graduate engineering and science students who want a powerfull graphical calculator plus a few other goodies then they could gain some mindshare and more profits.
Lets compare. $179 for a top of the line HP calculator vs $149 for a palm m100 with a todo list, games, calender, alarm, free compilers out on the web, and a scientific calculator sounds like a much better deal. Students need to plan time and the palm could do this as well as be a calculator. Not to mention you can beam programs back and forth with the IR port. A pda is like a calculator on steriods. Its really a mini computer. The only difference is you have virtual buttons on the screen rather then physical ones. Graphing is slow as hell on my TI-85 and I fear IT may harm innovation if they dominate. I do not want TI to dominate the whole calculator market.
http://saveie6.com/
Well, on a similar note, I just wanted to say that I am extremely satisfied with my Windows machine. Note, however, that I have not used, extensively, a Unix system. I've heard great things about them, but you know what: MY WINDOWS MACHINE IS FINE. It gets the job done, and quite well, if you ask me. I've never had a problem with it (aside from the "interface" going all to hell), and I am impressed by the enormous number of functions that come built into the OS.
I really should not say anything bad about Unix, as I am sure Unix machines are great, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Windows line. My friends use them, and I use them. They work wonders for us.
Also, I would like to tell you how extremely satisfied I am with my McDonald's hamburger. Note, however, that I have not eaten, often, steak...
Reverse Polish Notation Lives
and
This sad is.
Hey, that's almost like English! Makes you wonder.
Somebody already asked about a Palm Pilot being a suitable replacement (er, successor). There are certainly scientific calculator apps for Palm Pilots and similar devices, and there are already hp calculator emulators in various states of functionality for various platforms.
I wonder what HP is going to do with the many years of development that went into the roms and downloadable software that we've all come to know and love. Would Bruce Perens be able to swing an open source release so that the hp calcs can live on? And if that were to happen, what would be the best way to make use of such software? Would a Palm Pilot with perhaps a native port of a 49G rom be feasible? A strongarm port? A transmeta-based super-calc?
By the way, I still have my 28s somewhere, my 48GX was stolen, and I have a 49G right here next to my keyboard. At least I'll have it to show to my grandkids, or something like that.
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
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.