My HP Calculators...

[pinkman]

Antoine was a friend of mine, we were in the same college. He was the gadget boy of the classroom. In 1987 he came with a Casio fx7000G. Interesting. I asked the same for Christmas.
In 1989 he came with a 28s. It was a revelation for me: directories, advanced maths and physics, equations, units, lots of memory, real programming language, and a mysterious door to assembly language with the SYSEVAL instruction. Interesting! I asked the same for Christmas (parents not really happy this time, but I was studying maths, they accepted).
Opening the 28s (a few months after Antoine did it for his) to add input feature was a good idea also, and I could learn how to make electronic circuits.
Later I bought a 48GX but I did not really enjoy it : slow, complicated keyboard, too much menus, and... as I was learning computer science I was more often writing C code than RPL.
The keyboard then stopped working correctly. I put it in the trash, also with the 28s that could not be turned on anymore. It must have been in 2002 +/-2y.
(Today I'm so sorry for having thrown them away.)

I never forgot that HP really helped me to graduate and I was happy to use a 48 emulator when the iPhone app store appeared.
Last year I wanted to use a better emulator, looking in the Google app store for a programmable reverse polish emulator. I found Free42 and then I realized that I missed the main part of HP technology when I was young: RPN and keystroke programming. Another shock with RPN, the same than the one with my first HP (the 28s).
So I learned how to use Free42, and then I bought a DM41 (not working properly but really a good product), and a 15c, 12c, 35s, then 49g+, Prime, 17bii. ?
I use them at work (I beat the guys with Excel), at home (I like to make the math exercises of my children), everyday.

Antoine now leaves in Switzerland (I am still in France), I hope he met Michael of swissmicros. Did not ask him.