Your First Handheld?

[walter b]

(05-13-2014 03:54 AM)Mike Morrow Wrote:  The Woodstock battery/door assembly is one of the best HP ever managed to design...but then they ruined it with the self-destructing battery charging system...very very incompetent design!!!

It always amazes me when the first ten years of HP calculator design is held up as some sort of golden age. Whenever I hear or read of such an outlook, I'm pretty sure the person stating it has no real knowledge of HP calculator history...at least, as one who actually used them in contemporary times.

Please allow me stating that I - when using a refurbished HP-25C in 1977ff on a daily basis - never experienced any problem with the batteries. I even didn't know of that charging circuit problem at that time, and why the hell should I ever remove the batteries? There simply was no reason for doing that so I did charge them inside my HP-25C all the time, of course. What I don't know, however, was the kind of repair my 25C had seen before I got it - there simply was no reason for me opening it. So I was a satisfied user for several years, and my only reasons for replacing it were the batteries turning a bit weak after some years and the Voyagers having L.R. built in.

So much about contemporary experience, just one data point though.

d:-)