Has the WP 34s Project or a variant been offered to HP?

[AnalogJoe]

First of all let me acknowledge the great effort of all the people involved in the creation of the WP 34s, this is truly the work of love and art.

That being said, Im curious about a couple of things, the WP 34s is based on the now discontinued HP30b, so I dont know what are the plans for the WP 34s in the future.

However, has someone considered offering HP the WP 34s or a variant to be rebranded as HP and distributed commercially? I mean think about it, all the hard work which is the code is already there, it is already optimized for HP calculators, theres even documentation for the calculator.

If you think about it, HP has to provide only the hardware such as the HP30b with new relabeled keys to match the WP 34s, plus perhaps some mods to better fit complex number handling into the calc, but most of the R&D is already taken care of by the WP 34s developers.

Tell me why this is not a great opportunity for HP and all of us HP users?

[Steve Simpkin]

Well one big reason is that as great as the WP 34s is, there is not nearly a big enough target audience for this to be deemed profitable for HP to sell.
You know what they say in the accounting department;
"The bean stops here".

[Marcio]

It appears that advanced RPN calcs are no longer wanted/appreciated by the current market. They have a better chance with the Prime as its target audience is MUCH larger and easier to hit.

EDIT: Sorry, didnt see Steve's post.

[AnalogJoe]

Agreed about the Prime, yet there's still a need for advanced scientifics, not every school or institution will allow something like a Prime, for example the FE and PE tests wont allow the Prime, so the 35s is still going strong, the WP 34S could be a good candidate to replace it....

Also, not every student can afford a Prime, which is why there is an even bigger market for scientifics than CAS and graphing calculators. I would even dare to bet that for instance Casio has a greater income from their scientific calcs rather than their more advanced graphing calculators.

[Marcio]

(05-28-2015 04:46 AM)AnalogJoe Wrote:  Agreed about the Prime, yet there's still a need for advanced scientifics, not every school or institution will allow something like a Prime, for example the FE and PE tests wont allow the Prime, so the 35s is still going strong, the WP 34S could be a good candidate to replace it....

Also, not every student can afford a Prime, which is why there is an even bigger market for scientifics than CAS and graphing calculators. I would even dare to bet that for instance Casio has a greater income from their scientific calcs rather than their more advanced graphing calculators.

As you may have noticed, the learning curve on the 34s is quite steep. Most people today, even graduates, prefer algebraic calculators with pretty infix notation and that is probably why Casios and TIs sell well.

[jebem]

(05-28-2015 01:02 PM)Marcio Wrote:  

(05-28-2015 04:46 AM)AnalogJoe Wrote:  Agreed about the Prime, yet there's still a need for advanced scientifics, not every school or institution will allow something like a Prime, for example the FE and PE tests wont allow the Prime, so the 35s is still going strong, the WP 34S could be a good candidate to replace it....

Also, not every student can afford a Prime, which is why there is an even bigger market for scientifics than CAS and graphing calculators. I would even dare to bet that for instance Casio has a greater income from their scientific calcs rather than their more advanced graphing calculators.

As you may have noticed, the learning curve on the 34s is quite steep. Most people today, even graduates, prefer algebraic calculators with pretty infix notation and that is probably why Casios and TIs sell well.

Good points imho.

The WP-34S is a excellent project, but it is not that cheap when compared to a HP Prime in my view.

Even if you buy a HP-20B or 30B to re-flash it, on top of the buying price we need to add the cost of the keyboard layouts, plus the cost of materials to build a serial cable, plus the crystal mod, plus the donation for the project, plus the paperback user guide (it is a must if you ant to get the updated version), plus the electronic pdf format up to date user guide recently released.

Overall, I spent well above 90 Euros to build my WP-34S and get the full updated documentation.
It is not what I would call a bargain here in Europe.

And if you buy it ready made, the asking price will be around 70 to 90 Euros plus the shipping costs.
A HP Prime can be bought in Europe for about 100 Euro now, so the difference is not that huge anymore.

[Marcio]

(05-28-2015 02:54 PM)jebem Wrote:  The WP-34S is a excellent project, but it is not that cheap when compared to a HP Prime in my view.

Even if you buy a HP-20B or 30B to re-flash it, on top of the buying price we need to add the cost of the keyboard layouts, plus the cost of materials to build a serial cable, plus the crystal mod, plus the donation for the project, plus the paperback user guide (it is a must if you ant to get the updated version), plus the electronic pdf format up to date user guide recently released.

Overall, I spent well above 90 Euros to build my WP-34S and get the full updated documentation.
It is not what I would call a bargain here in Europe.

And if you buy it ready made, the asking price will be around 70 to 90 Euros plus the shipping costs.
A HP Prime can be bought in Europe for about 100 Euro now, so the difference is not that huge anymore.

If only HP decided to join the party. Guess the 34s would be much cheaper and we wouldn't have to worry about overlays.

[AnalogJoe]

Exactly, my point, if HP sold this calculators, you wouldnt have to worry about programming cables, keyboard layouts and what else... They could easily sell it for the same price the 35s is being sold today...

(05-28-2015 03:20 PM)Marcio Wrote:  

(05-28-2015 02:54 PM)jebem Wrote:  The WP-34S is a excellent project, but it is not that cheap when compared to a HP Prime in my view.

Even if you buy a HP-20B or 30B to re-flash it, on top of the buying price we need to add the cost of the keyboard layouts, plus the cost of materials to build a serial cable, plus the crystal mod, plus the donation for the project, plus the paperback user guide (it is a must if you ant to get the updated version), plus the electronic pdf format up to date user guide recently released.

Overall, I spent well above 90 Euros to build my WP-34S and get the full updated documentation.
It is not what I would call a bargain here in Europe.

And if you buy it ready made, the asking price will be around 70 to 90 Euros plus the shipping costs.
A HP Prime can be bought in Europe for about 100 Euro now, so the difference is not that huge anymore.

If only HP decided to join the party. Guess the 34s would be much cheaper and we wouldn't have to worry about overlays.

[Jake Schwartz]

(05-28-2015 04:29 PM)AnalogJoe Wrote:  Exactly, my point, if HP sold this calculators, you wouldnt have to worry about programming cables, keyboard layouts and what else... They could easily sell it for the same price the 35s is being sold today...

(05-28-2015 03:20 PM)Marcio Wrote:  If only HP decided to join the party. Guess the 34s would be much cheaper and we wouldn't have to worry about overlays.

Yes, and imagine a 34S with a full two-line dot-matrix display....things would significantly "open up". And basically, the future "43S" (should it actually happen) will realize that potential.

Jake

[John R]

Isn't the WP 34s software published under the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL)? I Am Not A Lawyer, but my engineer's-level understanding of GPL is that it explicitly allows all end users -- individuals or corporations, academics or hobbyists or profit-seekers -- to use, modify, republish, or resell the same software or derived software for essentially any purpose at all. I think that the only substantial restriction is that any release or sale of the original work or derived works must itself be bound by the GPL. In other words, any sale or rerelease must leave the original software and any derived software exactly as open to an end user as it is now.

If I am not mistaken, this means that HP could in fact use and sell the WP 34s project -- even rebranded as HP without further modification -- without requesting permission, or without permission being explicitly offered to them. They would just have to sell any derived products under the GPL, which would then require them to offer the original or modified source code free to any end user. My guess is that if HP thought they could realize enough profit to make such an HP-34S release viable, they would already have done it.

[Paul Dale]

The 34S was offered top HP, they didn't want it for a number of reasons.
End of story as far as I'm concerned.

- Pauli