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The HP-35: Consumer Electronics, an Origin Story

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

#71

Post by madengr »

Splines wrote: post #45
madengr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I feel that they're getting their legs back under their consumer division, although I agree their laptops have been really mediocre. However I have enjoyed using their enterprise workstations for the last 10 years are so (various models of Z4xx's) and haven't had any complaints.

They try forcing the Z series on me at work. I have bought Microway workstations. Much better bang for the buck, and better build quality.

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

#72

Post by nealabq »

wscott wrote: post #56

Some of these comments are "my first HP". I bought an HP-28C in when I graduated from high school using my own money. It was $235 which was a lot of money for me. My parents thought I was crazy. I later upgraded to the 28S followed by the 48sx. At college, I would enter and win the "Calculator Olympics". They would give you these super complicated algebraic expressions to evaluate. The TI people would lose track of a…

My father worked at HP in the 70s in Tool&Die, and made some of the molds for plastic pieces of the HP 35. He bought an HP 21 in '76. It's now my son's.

It still works perfectly, except the battery is lost so we run a wire into the battery compartment.

It's the most intuitive calculator I've ever used.

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

#73

Post by dboreham »

eitally wrote: post #61
pjmorris wrote: post #2

How can you not love this: > HP typically priced their equipment at the cost of the material list × π (or in an especially competitive market, list × e)

At most hardware companies, this is the starting point. As in, a flat multiple is the baseline, before S&M and other overheard costs are re-integrated by Finance into product cost.

Indeed. Same thing when I was a hardware engineer. However, I think the GP loves it due to the use of Pi and 'e' as the constants. We used 3 I seem to remember, but we included some amount for assembly and test, which I bet would come close to Pi.

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

#74

Post by ddingus »

agumonkey wrote: post #50
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…

Talking about Braun, I've been disassembling all kind of devices for a few monthes, and you can appreciate differences betweens brands a bit. Braun and a few brands, do have better materials, better internals. I guess 90% of consumers can't give a damn about that but it registered in my head. To the point that I would even start a website about that, some sort of ifixit for everything but phones.

You should. Teardowns on ordinary things is appealing and informative.

I suspect more people than you think would find all that compelling.

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

#75

Post by e3pi »

joezydeco wrote: post #68
_ugfj wrote: post #39

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…

I'm a proud 42S owner as well. I keep it safe in a drawer and use the Free42 build on iOS in my pocket: http://thomasokken.nl/free42/

I've a SKB case filled with HP calculators. It is your android FREE 42s I pack in the kit. Other than 3-D just-so HP's haptic double-injected keys, it's fantastic! Thank you Thomas for your phenomenal RPN gift to humankind!

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

#76

Post by siproprio »

setquk wrote: post #42
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.

As someone who switched away from RPN (well RPL) I disagree. I was an HP48/50 series fanboy since about 1995 and before that RPN on a HP41. I was the weird kid at school who didn’t have a normal calculator and the teachers couldn’t help me. However I bought a Casio FX991EX recently after using my daughter’s unit which has a modern entry system, solver, engineering units, conversions and dual power. It’s pretty much p…

The FX991EX is just awesome!

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

#77

Post by fermienrico »

agumonkey wrote: post #50
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…

Talking about Braun, I've been disassembling all kind of devices for a few monthes, and you can appreciate differences betweens brands a bit. Braun and a few brands, do have better materials, better internals. I guess 90% of consumers can't give a damn about that but it registered in my head. To the point that I would even start a website about that, some sort of ifixit for everything but phones.

Please...please start a blog, instagram, Youtube, whatever and post your findings. I've been meaning to purchase old Braun and B&O devices to learn how they're made but the expense is putting me off.

This would be so amazing if you could document your tear downs.

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

#78

Post by agumonkey »

ddingus wrote: post #74
agumonkey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about Braun, I've been disassembling all kind of devices for a few monthes, and you can appreciate differences betweens brands a bit. Braun and a few brands, do have better materials, better internals. I guess 90% of consumers can't give a damn about that but it registered in my head. To the point that I would even start a website about that, some sort of ifixit for everything but phones.

You should. Teardowns on ordinary things is appealing and informative. I suspect more people than you think would find all that compelling.

Youtube is already filled with that, but it's random in quality.. maybe

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

#79

Post by agumonkey »

fermienrico wrote: post #77
agumonkey wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about Braun, I've been disassembling all kind of devices for a few monthes, and you can appreciate differences betweens brands a bit. Braun and a few brands, do have better materials, better internals. I guess 90% of consumers can't give a damn about that but it registered in my head. To the point that I would even start a website about that, some sort of ifixit for everything but phones.

Please...please start a blog, instagram, Youtube, whatever and post your findings. I've been meaning to purchase old Braun and B&O devices to learn how they're made but the expense is putting me off. This would be so amazing if you could document your tear downs.

Well, my devices were those people leave on the curb monthly so finding Braun things there is possible (although not regular), B&O on the other hand .. you gotta be reaaaallly pressed to discard anything from them outside.

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

#80

Post by jasomill »

Stratoscope wrote: post #31
FullyFunctional wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

On a related note, in high school, my dog got hold of my nearly new HP-48GX; I wasn't so fortunate as you, as she bit right through the display, shattering it.

Figuring dog bites weren't covered under warranty, I sent the calculator — which had obvious "puncture wounds" through the display — off to HP Corvallis, with a note explaining the cause of the damage, and requesting a repair estimate for the damage.

A week or so later, I received a response — in the form of a brand new 48GX in retail packaging, provided at no charge.

Which, as expected, still works today (though these days, I rarely use any of my [embarrassingly many, including two revisions of HP-35] HP calculators other than my pair of 15Cs; though I do also have a 16C at my desk which I use on a semi-regular basis).

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