HP-14B

[Matt Agajanian]

Hi all.

Did the 14B ever catch on? It seems to me, the 12, 17B series, as well as models like the 20B and 30B had a longer run.

[Dave Britten]

Not really, from what I've seen. HP sort of tried to mimic the user interface from the TI BA II Plus (i.e. worksheets). But they left out date calculations!

[rprosperi]

The 14B is the least satisfying of all HP machines up through the Pioneer family run. Even the lowly 10B, as a bottom of the line, plain vanilla finance model at least set expectations well. The 14B pretended to be more, but just misses the mark. There can be little doubt that HP held lots of meetings about what to take OUT of this machine's specs. I mean only 4 general purpose registers? Even the 10B had 15 of those...

Sure, after that there were plenty of even worse machines, like the 10BII, 17BII Gold, 6/6S, 10S/10S+, but the 14B is a Pioneer, and as such, it's held to a higher standard.

It coulda been a contender... but alas, it missed.

[Steve Simpkin]

Yes, the 14B came out in late 1988 and was gone before 1993. Here it is in EduCalc catalog #49 (1990) next to the lower cost 10B.

[Steve Simpkin]

And here it is in emulation via Emu42.

[ijabbott]

I wonder why the 14B got shown some love with a 50th anniversary edition by HP?

[rprosperi]

(05-31-2022 09:33 PM)ijabbott Wrote:  I wonder why the 14B got shown some love with a 50th anniversary edition by HP?

I've wondered this for years! The 14B and 42S were introduced at the same time, so why the heck did they pick the 14B?!?! The 32S was introduced 4 months earlier and maybe they wanted one from the business area as well as scientific?

Of course they had to pick models introduced near HP's birthday, so then why not the 14B and the 42S?

Only using cheaper models???

The world may never know....

[Jlouis]

(05-31-2022 02:14 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  Sure, after that there were plenty of even worse machines, like the 10BII, 17BII Gold, 6/6S, 10S/10S+, but the 14B is a Pioneer, and as such, it's held to a higher standard.

Hi Bob,

A little bit off topic, but I'm curious about the flaws of the 10BII, that I have, and like a lot, and the 17BII Gold, that I don't have, but have the plain 17BII, which is IMHO simply amazing.

Maybe is my lack of expertise, but as I said, I'm curious on why you think these calculators aren't good enough.

TIA & Cheers!

JL

Edit: I just noticed that I have the 10BII+, NOT the 10BII, but the curiosity is still the same.

[Jlouis]

(05-31-2022 02:42 AM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  And here it is in emulation via Emu42.

At least the it has BIG size fonts and crisp display (as the 32SII).

Nowadays, as I'm aging, this is a very good point.

[rprosperi]

(06-02-2022 03:37 AM)Jlouis Wrote:  Maybe is my lack of expertise, but as I said, I'm curious on why you think these calculators aren't good enough.

I probably should have been more clear here, I was referring to the original 10BII and the latter 17BII, both of which share a common physical design, though with different color schemes. The later version of the former and original version of the latter are both fine machines.

The features of these are fine, but the mechanical and industrial design of these are terrible; the keys are mushy, the key labels cheap looking, the case is flimsy and overall they feel like $3 4-bangers, undermining their generally solid features.

This reimplementation of the 17BII introduced the buggy version of the Pioneer Solver, thus crippling one of its most useful features (for higher end users).

So, these are, IMHO, in the yucky category...

[Jlouis]

Thanks Bob!

[Vincent Weber]

The 14B has one advanced feature that the 17BII doesn't have: for curve fitting, it can select "B" (best) regression model. This feature was only introduced with the 42S and 14B, and didn't exist yet when the 17B came out.

[Didier Lachieze]

(06-01-2022 02:38 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(05-31-2022 09:33 PM)ijabbott Wrote:  I wonder why the 14B got shown some love with a 50th anniversary edition by HP?

I've wondered this for years! The 14B and 42S were introduced at the same time, so why the heck did they pick the 14B?!?! The 32S was introduced 4 months earlier and maybe they wanted one from the business area as well as scientific?

Of course they had to pick models introduced near HP's birthday, so then why not the 14B and the 42S?

Only using cheaper models???

The world may never know....

Remember that the 50th anniversary edition calculators were not intended for the general public but only for HP employees and stockholders. And they were both available for $50 only.

Looking at the calculator prices in the Educalc #45 1989 catalog:

HP-10B $41.95 (list price $60)
HP-20S $41.95 (list price $50)
HP-21S $41.95 (list price $50)

HP-14B $61.95 (list price $80)
HP-22S $47.95 (list price $60)
HP-32S $56.95 (list price $70)

HP-17B $84.95 (list price $100)
HP-27S $84.95 (list price $110) - limited sale at $69.95 for orders before 9-30-89
HP-42S $89.95 (list price $120)

I think it makes sense that they picked the 14B (a business calculator) and 32S (a traditional RPN scientific calculator) which were in the same range, positioned between the low-end and high-end models.

However, HP may have considered using the 27S (and potentially the 42S) instead given the existence of an HP-27S 50th anniversary model.

[rprosperi]

(06-03-2022 08:18 AM)Didier Lachieze Wrote:  However, HP may have considered using the 27S (and potentially the 42S) instead given the existence of an HP-27S 50th anniversary model.

Thanks for the reminder Didier. After seeing that post, I've wondered if HP originally selected only the 27S, since it had both business and scientific features, but after many contentious meetings finally decided the scientific model they offered must be RPN, and so changed the offering to the models finally used.

[ijabbott]

(06-02-2022 12:30 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(06-02-2022 03:37 AM)Jlouis Wrote:  Maybe is my lack of expertise, but as I said, I'm curious on why you think these calculators aren't good enough.

I probably should have been more clear here, I was referring to the original 10BII and the latter 17BII, both of which share a common physical design, though with different color schemes. The later version of the former and original version of the latter are both fine machines.

You meant the 17bII+ of course.

Quote:The features of these are fine, but the mechanical and industrial design of these are terrible; the keys are mushy, the key labels cheap looking, the case is flimsy and overall they feel like $3 4-bangers, undermining their generally solid features.

Definitely, although I think they improved both the look and the mechanicals with the later iterations by the time the 10BII evolved to the 10bII (same shape as the 10bII+) and the 17bII+ evolved to the current silver model.

Of the three second hand silver 17bII+'s I have (I can't pass up a bargain on eBay!), one of them does have a slightly dodgy button that needs a firmer press than the others to register. I'll give that vote to the original Pioneer keyboards.

Quote:This reimplementation of the 17BII introduced the buggy version of the Pioneer Solver, thus crippling one of its most useful features (for higher end users).

So, these are, IMHO, in the yucky category...

Aside from the disfunctional Let and Get (L() and G()) functions, I actually prefer to use the silver 17bII+ over the original 17BII Pioneer. It feels nice in the hand (probably due to the weights inside the case) and the LCD display has decent contrast.

[rprosperi]

(06-03-2022 12:22 PM)ijabbott Wrote:  You meant the 17bII+ of course.

Yes I did, sorry for the missing "+", and this is already within a clarification... rats!

(06-03-2022 12:22 PM)ijabbott Wrote:  Aside from the disfunctional Let and Get (L() and G()) functions, I actually prefer to use the silver 17bII+ over the original 17BII Pioneer. It feels nice in the hand (probably due to the weights inside the case) and the LCD display has decent contrast.

I agree, for most 17BII+ use, I don't need the solver, so I use Silver models. I like these so much, I have one on each of my 2 desks, about 6 feet apart, and that does not include the collection unit, or the spare unit, or the.... These can be found so cheap (one, less then $25 w/ship) on the bay, well... why not?

Although the use cases where the solver bugs affect calculations is somewhat narrow, I simply use a different machine when I dabble with the Solver (I don't want to spend time remembering exactly when L() and G() cause extra evaluations, etc.), typically a 19BII or 27S, depending on what I'm doing.