Slashdot Mirror
Celebrating the HP-35 Calculator With a New Model
An anonymous reader writes "Hewlett-Packard last week announced a contest whereby HP-35 fans create and submit videos of their favorite calculator memories. HP will choose the best videos and you can win a 50-inch, high-def plasma TV. But everyone wins, because HP this summer will debut a special new calculator model. The details aren't announced, however, it's likely to be a 35th anniversary edition of some sort."
I loved RPN. It was kind of like running Linux; if someone asked to borrow my calculator, they'd freak out because they couldn't find the equals key, and I'd have to explain how to use the thing.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Wouldn't it be great to see an innovative new calculator design from HP to mark the 35th anniversary rather than a re-hashed "special edition" of some classic design?
But everyone wins, because HP this summer will debut a special new calculator model. The details aren't announced, however, it's likely to be a 35th anniversary edition of some sort."
I love my HP 48GX. I'd love to see an updated 48GX with a faster processor and more memory. Mine is 11 or 12 years old and I still like it better than anything that has come since then, including all of TI's offerings which many schools prefer. With all the advances in semiconductor technology, you could pack a lot more memory and performance into the same package. Hopefully we won't have to wait for a 48th anniversary edition.
No, Bring Back the 15c!
Seriously, the 15c's features were a superset of the 11c's features, with the exception of the register allocation scheme. But they can do that however they want these days.
I learnt to program on an HP29C overalmost 30 years ago. 98 instructions (well keystrokes) of programming and only a few registers forced you to be pretty frugal, although at the time we thought that was pretty plush compared with the HP25 whiuch had half the memory.
As I type this, I have an HP48SX and HP28S on the desk in front of me. Great devices. My kids both use HP48s for their routine calculations & programming too.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Man, that one brings back memories...I loved that calculator.
Hello HP;
I am among the last in a long line of engineers who have been lucky enough to be exposed to the OLD HP. The HP run by engineers, that made great test equipment, and calculators. The HP that made great calculators with excellent tactile feedback. You know, one of the only reasons to USE a dedicated calculator.
My HP48GX was purchased in the summer of 1994 before I started my electrical engineering degree. It followed me through every exam and project I have done since and proudly sits on my desk today where it continues to be used daily. I own a 48G I boughts as a spare; and happily run the emulators you have so nicely provided the ROM for, including on my very speedy Palm T3.
I also owned a great HP35, and a HP100LX that I used daily for years. All of these devices had the great, tactile response keys and indestructible construction.
So please, for the love all that is holy and good in the universe, do not make another fisher price calculator. Please make another quality business calculator, and PLEASE consider making an updated version of the best engineering calculator that ever was - the HP48GX.
..don't panic
I'd like to see a programmer's calculator like the 16C but with an alphanumeric display and programming capability like the 41CV. After programming the 41CV with the alphanumeric display, I couldn't stand scrolling through a program on the 16C and having to map numeric keycodes to functions.
...because every school across the country seemingly pushes TI use in school, I didn't think people used anything else. I don't see how one implies the other. What engineer would take a high school teacher's calculator recommendation at face value? Public schools use TIs because TI markets to the teachers. Ten years ago, all engineers used HPs because HP marketed to engineers and professionals. Then Carly Fiorina took over and killed the HP calculator business for a few years. But they are now back in the game and developing new models that are once again very good products. If you can be bothered to learn RPN, you will never buy TI for yourself again.Back in the day when HP still made calculators, everyone else -- TI included -- played second fiddle. HPs were the premier pocket (or belt-loop pouch) calculator from the early Seventies to the mid nineties, more capable, more durable and more desirable than TI, Casio, or any other pretender.
Too bad they abandoned the market and now only sell rebranded units from Asia. Check http://www.hpmuseum.org/ for the complete history of the HP calculator.
I am not a crackpot.
The HP41cx was THE best calculator ever made by humans.
Nothing before, nor after, touched it, IMHO.
Anybody else remember the PPC ROM?
I suppose me and my loyal Ti-89 are not welcome in your HP love fest, huh!
/me storms out
I never got the RPN hang of
If my call is important, why am I talking to a recording?
The sad truth is that the world just doesn't have much use for calculators, any more. The world is too busy worrying about who the Next Top Model is.
I don't respond to AC's.
One that was brainwashed by growing up using Ti calculators in school.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
In maybe 1974 my dad, a Civil Engineer bought an HP 35C. Even though it cost a fortune (in those days), he let his 10 year old son (me) play with it. I remember being so impressed with it that it cemented my impression that HP was THE company to work for, if you were an electrical engineer.
18 years later I joined HP.
15 years after that and I'm still at HP. It's not the same place that it was in 1992, but then again what place is? I'd still rather be here than at the other computer makers, but the software and services companies are where the real action is now. Unfortunately, few of them seem to have that same "engineer's company" feel that HP did back in the day.
FWIW I don't blame Carly, though I didn't like her either. It was inevitable, with commoditization of the hardware.
Can anyone update an old timer as to the state of calculator development? When I was getting out of these things, it looked like TI and HP were going to have a duel to the death. With color LCD's on the verge of availability and the Power PC line of low-power chips set to overtake the world, it looked like a bright future of powerful visualizations.
Fifteen years on, it looks like the high-end calculator market has all but been abandoned to mathematica. Prices for the calculators haven't budged a dollar, while the price of all of the components have dropped to next to nothing.
Who is still making these things? Who, if anyone, is still competing?
The ______ Agenda
You will almost never convince someone who has not used an HP in a job what you wrote - TI's worked fine in school so they should everywhere else.
My father is a land surveyor, he and the engineers he works with have lamented for ages about the lack of good calculators. They treasure their hp48's and 41's like a child. Most have several stockpiled. Many also grew up using TI's, but once they found the "older" HP's none ever looked back. I prefer my old 48 over my 49, but I sacrificed it to my father's business since I mostly use it for calculating stats in video games now (while I use plenty of math, as a software engineer it tends more towards stuff that isn't calculator based and the 49 does just as good there).
TI's break from field usage, the keys wear out fast, and the software available is almost 100% geared towards high school and universities - not the real world. Sadly the newer HP's do also - although I understand that they are trying to make good calculators again. A person who has spent time with an HP will run rings around someone with a TI on almost any calculations - in the real world you do what is fastest/best even if it needs a learning curve, not that that which is easiest. Especially true in the engineering world. Over a 30 year career that makes WAY WAY more money, "long term" in a university setting is a semester.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
A person who has spent time with an HP will run rings around someone with a TI on almost any calculations
It's been a few years, but I remember in things like physics labs where you have to do a lot of number crunching, all of my lab partners would always plug along dutifully on their TIs while I would have done the calculation twice (once and then a double check) using RPN on my 48GX. I don't use a calculator much anymore, as MATLAB tends to be quicker for the things I need to do, but whatever HP lacks in computational power, it makes up for in efficient syntax.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
I, for one, welcomed our new hp overlords
1973, Jr. year (OMG!), Florida (yes, the Gators)
$300 very hard earned real dollars went into the hp-35, maybe (judging from house and car prices) $3-5k today) and about the best money I ever spent
As they say, it let me concentrate on concepts rather than number crunching; within a year everyone had one (or the awful TIs) and engineering (and science) would never be the same. Take offense if you must, but RPN users are smarter.
Followed by a 67, 25, 21, 41, 28, 48 (G and GX), 49 and recently another 21, for the collection. They all work. By now I use a 48 and only do basic stuff, with smarter (always hire smarter people) young engineers doing the hard stuff under my possibly wise direction
We worked with hp on several tweaks; an admirable co. and group of guys.
If the surprise is a gold plated hp-35, I'm in line. What will you young guys see in 35 years, post singularity?
To quote the now prehistoric Grateful Dead: "What a long strange trip it's been"
Sears did a gold plated ratchet wrench for its anniversary. It would be interesting to see HP do something nice like that. The truth is that HP calcs last nearly forever, so why not?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
TI is coming out with a new calculator this fall, called the Nspire...
http://www.ti-nspire.com/tools/nspire/index.html
* 320x240 Gray Scale LCD
* CAS Functions.
* 16MB RAM
* 20MB Flash
In '72, I saw the HP advertizement in Scientific American. I ordered it by calling HP directly. I had to send them a bank check for $400.00. I had to wait more than three months; into the beginning of third year in U of M Engineering school.
It finally arrived in late September.
So how did I handle it? It was the only one on campus that I was aware of. I took it to my professors and asked if I could use it in class and on exams. After they wiped the drool away, they all said yes.
It saw the greatest use in the dorm, loaned to engineers taking surveying. I adopted a policy of loaning it to anyone in the dorm (Bursely Hall) that asked to borrow it. Everyone knew it belonged to me. It always came back.
Predictions: Talking about calculators in class that same year (1972), I took a three ring notebook turned it sideways opened it and suggested the facing cover would be the display screen and the keyboard would be where the pages were held; a personal laptop computer. I had to wait another twenty years for it to arrive on my desk.
Worst experiance with it: I missed an 'A' in a mechanical design course by one point. I took a square root (one key stroke) instead of cube root (x raised to the y) on the final exam. The professor wouldn't budge.
I wish I still had it. After graduation, I loaned to to my employer's wife for to calculate discounts in a flower & plant store she was running. The store was broken into and it was stolen. They paid for a later model (21 or 25??).
I didn't like little leather case that came with it; too insubstantial. I bought a zippered bible cover and a bakelite case at Radio Shack. I trimmed the case to fit inside the bible cover and then lined the case with nylon lined neoprene to absorb shock. The 35 fit perfectly inside. I still have case. I keep my LCD multi-meter in it.
If I had it I would probably have it mounted on the wall in my office.