The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story • Hacker News Board

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#31

Post by Stratoscope » Sat, May 12, 2018, 2:10 AM UTC

FullyFunctional wrote: post #19

fermienrico wrote: post #4

Unfortunately, consumer electronics are not the same as the days of Braun. 70’s was the golden era. I was extremely pleased with my DM42 from SwissMicros. All of their models either have a Titanium or Steel case. The heft and quality is just absolutely beautiful. I spoke to Michael Steinmann and he seems to be a great guy passionate about what he does. I enjoyed our conversation about old school electronics. Check ou…

INTERESTING, thanks for sharing. Please, how is the keyboard? To me, more than anything, what made the HP calc fantastic was the great keyboard - which really matters when you start using them in anger. My HP-15C survived all but the last of many drops. The HP-11C that replaced it still powers on on its original batteries!

These were rugged little machines.

Back in the '80s I had a dog named Ben. A lab-afghan-shepherd mix, truly a great dog. Whenever he took a nap, my cat Petunia would climb on top of him and take a nap with him. They were best friends.

Ben had only one bad habit. He liked to find my wallet or checkbook and bury it in the back yard!

One day he found my HP-16C in its "leatherette" case. Yes, it was just like a checkbook or wallet. So he buried it for me. Thanks, Ben.

And then he dug it back up and when I found it, it had major tooth marks in it!

I was pretty upset. This was not a cheap calculator. So I swatted him on the nose with it. [1] And then I was so angry I threw the calculator across the street!

Well, I felt pretty stupid after that. So I went across the street, picked up the calculator, and it still worked! And it still works to this day. (Lucky for me, Ben's tooth marks just missed the display.)

[1] Animal rights lovers, please do not get too upset. Ben and I had our disagreements from time to time, but we were best of friends, just like all the dogs and cats I've had the privilege of sharing a home with.

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#32

Post by gcb0 » Sat, May 12, 2018, 2:52 AM UTC

> HP’s own LEDs [...] the calculator needed 15 of them

> Osborne was able to get the price down to a dollar each

> HP typically priced their equipment at the cost of the material list × π [...] the LED display around 20 dollars

uh?

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#33

Post by ghaff » Sat, May 12, 2018, 2:54 AM UTC

opencl wrote: post #28

gcb0 wrote: post #13

> battery for 3 hours Wow. How often people would replace batteries on this?

It uses a pack of rechargable AAs, I have an HP-45 (the immediate successor, with the same battery pack) and replaced the original NiCD cells with NiMH. When I got it the batteries were clearly already a few decades old. AAs NiCDs were pretty common back then, I have an old TI and Soviet-made Electronika calculator that also use them.

Right. It mostly wasn't a problem so long as you remembered to charge them before exams, etc. In college, I'd still bring a slide rule to final exams as backup just in case something happened although I never had a problem.

I started college just as scientific calculators were appearing on the scene. I had a TO for a couple of years because the HPs were still so expensive but I was able to pickup an HP-55 after a bit for a relatively affordable price (still probably talking about high 3 digits in today's dollars). That's what I used until I bought an HP-41CV when I went back to school and needed a more programmable calculator.

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#34

Post by gyc » Sat, May 12, 2018, 4:13 AM UTC

What an interesting story. My dad had an HP-35 that he used as a grad student at Stanford in the 70s, and he handed it down to me decades later for me to use in my high school math classes.

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#35

Post by rjsw » Sat, May 12, 2018, 4:36 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #14

ChuckMcM wrote: post #6

It really is hard to over state the impact that scientific calculators had on industry. My great uncle who was an engineer at the Panama Canal company had log tables, these were tables of logarithmic values given a number, and the inverse. He needed the heavy tome because he couldn't get enough digits of precision out of his slide rule. He was one of those people who immediately bought an HP-35 when it came out and w…

I have my dad's slide rule, and his HP-35. He's a retired industrial research scientist. At my dad's workplace, every scientist had a Friden 55. The managers compared the price of the HP to the annual service contract on the Friden, and bought an HP to try out. They were going to let each scientist have it for a week, then pass it on to the next person. Instead, after just a couple weeks, the Fridens were all in the…

I have my grandfather's pocket slide rule.

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#36

Post by EarthIsHome » Sat, May 12, 2018, 4:37 AM UTC

poyu wrote: post #7

I really really like HP calculators. The only one I have now is the HP-35s, a new version of HP-35. Once you go RPN, you can never go back! I have PCalc (another piece of amazing software) on my phone for RPN. It feels really stupid for others to see that I can't operate a normal calculator.

I love the HP-35s. Having common conversions at the press of a button is really convenient.

Here's the buglist for the HP-35s: http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/articles.cg...

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#37

Post by chx » Sat, May 12, 2018, 4:53 AM UTC

madengr wrote: post #22

Lio wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founders of HP were just so much cooler than the business school goons like Fiorina who practically drove it into the ground. That pricing formula is so playful, as is "well I want one and so do my engineers". Chapeau Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

Ha ha, practically? She did. Keysight is what’s left of the original HP. HP is now known for garbage computers and shitty printers.

And calculators...?

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#38

Post by wyclif » Sat, May 12, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

While I am definitely fond of the HP-35 in a nostalgic sense, my real-life working calculator was the HP-48GX when I became a land surveyor. I added a COGO card that would calculate pavement design, storm water pipe modelling, and the area of a polygon after the coordinates of each point were given. And away I went. There wasn't much I couldn't do with that, graphing or calc-wise. Made my job so much easier in the field.

When they killed the HP-48GX, and replaced it with inferior models, it was a dark day in land surveying.

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#39

Post by _ugfj » Sat, May 12, 2018, 5:01 AM UTC

I bought a HP-42S in West Germany in 1989, my first trip to the West when I was 14 (I was Hungarian at the time, now that's fixed, I am Canadian). Oh the memories.

Later, 1995, I got a HP 48G via Usenet (eBay opened the month when it arrived from the USA so it's not like I could've bought it there). A friend of mine have soldered four 128K SRAMs in there, stacked, with most legs just ran together vertically with the few data legs separated. Dave Arnett himself told us it's possible to change a G into a GX... https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.sys.hp48/CS0lTpKkBHw/vn...

I still have it although I do not use it, it's one of the very few things I carried over when I immigrated.

Ps. Isn't the Internet fantastic? The easy communication with people you'd never be able to connect with otherwise and the astonishing archives allowing me to dig this 23 year old conversation up with ease.

Re: The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

#40

Post by Hextinium » Sat, May 12, 2018, 5:02 AM UTC

poyu wrote: post #7

I really really like HP calculators. The only one I have now is the HP-35s, a new version of HP-35. Once you go RPN, you can never go back! I have PCalc (another piece of amazing software) on my phone for RPN. It feels really stupid for others to see that I can't operate a normal calculator.

I highly recommend anyone to convert to RPN but it does make you feel like a idiot when you can't use a normal calculator for the minute it takes to switch back over to normal. I find it doubly frustrating though to use a normal one because I know now the forbidden fruit of how calculators can be improved and college sometimes prevents me from using it.