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By Design News Staff -- Design News, February 4, 2002
For love…or a calculator?
Sorry to hear HP is closing down their Australia Calculator Organization (DN Editorial 12.17.01). The Aussies need the high-tech jobs and we still need HP's calculators.
I was a junior in mechanical engineering in 1972 when HP debuted the HP-35 calculator. It was an absolute godsend. Now, for mere money, any student could have the same calculating power as a professor. No more misplaced decimal points. No more headaches in heat transfer problems using natural logs and other mixed expressions. No more using those log-log scales to figure "y to the × power" for perfect gas law equations!
Of course, the "mere money" was $400, which was a lot in 1972. My friend Dave bought an HP-35 in lieu of buying his girlfriend Sandy an engagement ring. She was not pleased. But they've been married since 1976, so I think things worked out regardless. I couldn't afford one. But my roommate had one, through the help of his brother-in-law who worked at IBM. He let me use it for heat transfer tests, and it made a huge difference. I finally bought an HP-20 in 1976—$151 with tax.
I now use a TI-35 Galaxy Solar at work. But I also have a newer HP calculator at home. I would hate to see the product disappear. Personal calculators are so useful. They used to do so much. Now they seem to do so little, relative to PC's. But they do it so well.
Ronald Carrigan
HP all in the family
I agree completely with Karen Field regarding the HP calculators. It is too bad that those of us who can appreciate the logic behind RPN are such a minority that nobody makes such calculators any more. I have used an HP41C for more than thirty years now, and I still love it. What a marvelous piece of engineering! The programming logic and the integration of all the peripherals is a masterpiece. The only improvements I can imagine, is that they should have accommodated AA or at least AAA batteries and used a rubber for the card reader traction wheel that would last longer. I cannot use the card reader any more. I now have a collection of half a dozen HP41C, CV, and CX plus a few HP92 and HP97, a printer, a wand, and chargers. My wife uses an HP11C.
Staffan Persson, Madison, AL
There's always e-bay…
As a long time user of HP calculators, I enjoyed your editorial. I have two bits of information for you.
The market value of older HP calculators (HP41) is amazingly high. The final bid price for these on ebay is usually well over $100 for a 10+ year old calculator. My HP41 from 1979 is still going strong and my HP25 from 1975 still also works well. People will pay more for an old HP41 system than a brand new HP48. I prefer the HP41 to the HP48 — easier to use for me.
Check out www.hpmuseum.org. This is a museum of all HP calculators.
Kenneth A. Kuhn, Pelham, AL
…if you're desperate
I have been dreading the day that HP stops producing true scientific calculators and agree with you that they deserve saving. I still wish that I could buy a new "retro" replacement to my beloved HP11C. I am even tempted to buy off ebay. There simply is no equal to the fit, feel, and function of the HP calculator. I hope that through all of the difficult decisions that HP will have to make as they plan their future that they will consider the historical significance of their product.
Clark Woodruff
A little too heavy-handed
Your article in Design News about HP calculators was interesting. I usually don't write to magazines, but I felt a need to agree with your line about "all for fewer keystrokes." I couldn't agree more!
That being said, I need to speak out about your last two calculations listed in your article: get rid of the first "enter" in each case! Any unary operator (i.e., operates on only one operand, in this case the "X" register contents) does not need to be "entered" first. The 1/× and e^× operations are both unary.
Most people I know who use HP calcs use the "enter" key as often as my piano teacher accused me of leaning on the damper pedal (she even called me a "damper leadfoot!"). Sine of 45 deg is a good example—just key in 4, 5, SIN.
Other than that, great article.
Mike Kagan, Design News reader
A significant difference
910.9992345? It's only an emergency to 3 significant figures!
Cheers.
John Ousterhout, Sr Mfg. and Test Engineer, General Dynamics—OTS
Where's what?
Thanks to Jan Lukasiewicz and the Hewlett-Packard Company, I never had to worry about anyone using my calculator. "Where is the equal button?" I was the last one in my engineering department to get a calculator but I was the first to get a HP25 and I just smiled at all those TI people. Life was good.
Tom Wich, Design News reader
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