HP Calculator Highlights since the 1980

[CY-CL]

- HP-41CX TURBO
- HP-41CW TURBO
- W&W Rambox

- ERAMCO Rambox
- Diegos Clonix and NoV’s Modules
- HEPAX

- HP-41CL v2 / v3 / v4 / v5
- HP-71 FRAM

- Woodstock ACT from Panamatik
- Woodstock LowPower from Panamatik… the coolest thing I ever had!

- HP Classic Upgrade Kit

- DM42
- WP34S
- New RPL

Others???

Please add!

Thanks
Patrik

[Paul Dale]

Since the 80^th what?

WP 34S
DM 42
New RPL


Pauli

[Didier Lachieze]

I'm not sure what you want to list, but as you've mentioned :

(03-31-2018 07:41 AM)CY-CL Wrote:  - ERAMCO Rambox
- Diegos Clonix and NoV’s Modules

You'll find a comprehensive list of Ram/Eprom box products here.

You need also to add the HEPAX module to the list.

The HP Classic Upgrade Kit seems as well to fit with the listed products.

[EdS2]

Meaning, perhaps, since the 1980s?

[grsbanks]

Not strictly an HP calculator but you've got to add Monte's HP-41CL to that list!

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello,

if "since the 1980ies" does mean "after 1989" there are two which appeal to me: The HP-35S and the Panamatik Woodstock LP kit.

It the 80ies are included then the HP-71B joins the (short) list.

[CY-CL]

I mean special calculators/enhancements like the HP-41CY TURBO which was upgraded by W&W company, or the FRAM module for the HP-71B… or the new ACT from Panamatik for all Woodstock calculators…

[pier4r]

RPL (since newRPL is there as well)
HP PPL ?
rpl/2 ?

71B / basic of the 71B ?
Mathematical ROMs for the 71B ?
15c ?
15c advanced functions handbook?

I am not sure what can we list. Software, hardware, extensions? Documentation? Everything?

[CY-CL]

(03-31-2018 11:08 AM)pier4r Wrote:  RPL (since newRPL is there as well)
HP PPL ?
rpl/2 ?

71B / basic of the 71B ?
Mathematical ROMs for the 71B ?
15c ?
15c advanced functions handbook?

I am not sure what can we list. Software, hardware, extensions? Documentation? Everything?

You can list anything special. A never used HP-35 Red Dot in original box is also a very special thing.

[Massimo Gnerucci]

JIT for 4/1... ;)

[grsbanks]

I wondered how long it would be before someone dug out that HP-67CX

[rprosperi]

(03-31-2018 03:17 PM)grsbanks Wrote:  I wondered how long it would be before someone dug out that HP-67CX

It makes an appearance about one a year. Never gets old though...

Anyone know who made the original?

[Harald]

(03-31-2018 10:11 AM)emersone12 Wrote:  My hopes are much lower & the highlight of the decade for me would be to see the HP Classic upgrade kit put into a commercially manufactured LED production model for all to enjoy without having to cannibalize scarce & rare old LED HP's (sacrilege), just like the commercially produced range of older LCD HP models now exist from Swiss Micros.

The Classic Upgrade Kit is designed in such a way that the modification is completely reversible. The hole in the battery compartment is optional, and if you don't cut it, all you have to do is open the calculator and swap the main PCB.
Leving the keyboard and display PCB alone sacrifices the power savin shut down. This is something I thought about long and hard. In the end I thought sacrificing functionality to have a completly reversible modification seemes like the right compromise.

Harald

[PANAMATIK]

Don't fotget Chris Chungs NP-25 masterpiece!

Bernhard

[Gene]

(04-01-2018 03:43 AM)emersone12 Wrote:  The old HP case shapes are attractive well designed works of art & very comfortable to hold compared to the ridiculous sharp-edged design of the recent modern Chinese designed HP-30B.

Gene: I remember being told by an industrial designer that the edge was there on purpose. To my credit (?) I did ask if he was joking. Sigh. Just like the bright yellow/orange shift key colors on the original PRIME or the dark green on the dark blue on the HP 39g, ... the list goes on.

Remember, those decisions are influenced but not made by engineers.

[rprosperi]

(04-01-2018 12:37 PM)Gene Wrote:  ...Just like the bright yellow/orange shift key colors on the original PRIME or the dark green on the dark blue on the HP 39g, ... the list goes on.

Remember, those decisions are influenced but not made by engineers.

And these color issues were decisions from the almighty HP Marketing geniuses. Seems there were not enough engineers available to exert reasonable influence, for as I recall, all the HP engineers involved vehemently disagreed with those color choices...

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(04-01-2018 01:25 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  And these color issues were decisions from the almighty HP Marketing geniuses.

But I can see a development there. In the 80ies it was decisions from the mathematics geniuses (not engineers and certainly not marketing people for sure) who put HP calculators onto that RPL track which moved them away from the all-important education market and from a big portion of their "fan base" for good. After that, the marketing department took over and went for fancy colours instead of fancy programming paradigms ;-) (Personally I prefer the silliest paint scheme over a decently painted RPL calculator though).

[Michael de Estrada]

I’m still waiting for the HP 51g.

[rprosperi]

(04-01-2018 01:55 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  But I can see a development there. In the 80ies it was decisions from the mathematics geniuses (not engineers and certainly not marketing people for sure) who put HP calculators onto that RPL track which moved them away from the all-important education market and from a big portion of their "fan base" for good. After that, the marketing department took over and went for fancy colours instead of fancy programming paradigms ;-) (Personally I prefer the silliest paint scheme over a decently painted RPL calculator though).

When the 28 and 48 RPL series were designed, Engineers and Math professionals were still the driving high-end calculator market, Education had barely started using calculators in the classroom. As the Education market evolved and grew, they found the easier to learn and use Algebraic models more appropriate and adopted them, and then well... the former market shrunk, the latter market grew and we all know how it turned out.

So I don't think its fair to say that introducing RPL took HP away from the Education market, it likely is more correct to say that as the Education Market developed and grew, HP was busy focused on other explosive market segment growth (InkJet printers, computers) and also randomly moving the Calculator group to a new continent every 2 years, and by the time they re-focused properly, they were too far behind to play. That is, until the Prime, which could still prove to be a game changer, albeit slowly.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

(04-01-2018 02:21 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  So I don't think its fair to say that introducing RPL took HP away from the Education market, ...

Of course not, there were many other contributing factors too. In the 1970ies when calculators started to appear in classrooms (I got my first one around 1976 or so) it was their high prices - at least in Europe - which kept HP products out of the classrooms. RPN didn't help much either because (almost) every other manufacturer did not go that way and teachers wouldn't have liked to teach 1/2 of the students RPN and the other half algebraic depending on what the parents could afford to buy their children. We all had different calculators in my class at school but nobody had one from HP.

But RPL cost them most of the university market, at least around here. Especially in the engineering departments where they could have sold big numbers of units. As I wrote in another thread, a calculator is one tool among others and a tool which requires to study 1500 pages of manual and which I can't borrow to a colleague without a weekend's worth of explanation was considered pretty useless by many (me included).