[VA] SRC#005- April, 1st Mean Minichallenge

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello,

(04-11-2019 11:56 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  [Ti Voyaga] so I think I'll soon have a thorough look at it and if I like what I see it's perfectly possible that I'll get one for my ultra-portable, on-the-go calc needs ...

Well, the term "ultra portable" is of course open to interpretation. I took a quick photo of some scientific calcuators I pulled out from the heaps around my desk (all of which of course are functional and able to solve the problem from this thread with the exception of the orinial HP-35). Interestingly their sizes do not differ as much as one would have thought. The notable exception is the cute "Woodstock" whose footprint is only 1/2 of most of the others. The biggest and heaviest one is actually the 2nd generation Ti Nspire. The Voyage has 14% more square centimeters than the HP-71B but does not need a protective case and therefore uses less space in the briefcase than the HP.



(Just for those readers unfamiliar with non-HP calculators, the top row shows:
Ti Voyage 200, HP-71B with an extra memory module in place of the card reader, Ti nSpire (2nd generation), HP-39gii, Ti-83plus, HP-48G
the bottom row: HP-95LX, HP-29C, HP-35 version 3, HP-35s, Ti-59, HP-41CV)

(04-11-2019 11:56 PM)Valentin Albillo Wrote:  On a side note, I've never understood why HP calc fans are so uninterested (even dismissive) about the HP-71B and 71B BASIC. It could be due to its unavailability when it was released, as it was so expensive that most HP fans couldn't lay their hands on one, but now that you can get one for peanuts (even as a gift) or in emulated form for nothing (Emu71/DOS, Emu71/Windows), the main reason for not owning and using one has become utterly moot.

[unavailability] When it came out I was at univerisity and not even able to afford an HP-41. The 71B cost over twice as much and a couple of accessories could drive the price up to the level of a decent family car. My Ti-59 cost only half of the HP-41 for comparison. (The car I was driving at the time had cost me 300 DM, an HP-71B would have cost between 1500 and 2000 DM - just to show how out-of-the world the price tag was - about as much a Commodre PET, Apple II or other first-generation "home computer" which then were really the things we wanted to have).
I always wonder why so many of them are available on the collector market now, there must have been a lot of wealthy professionals back then who (or whose employer) could afford them. But that's good for us of course :-)

I wonder what would have happened if HP had brought out a direct successor in the early 1990ies, an HP-72B. Leave the then obsolete card reader away, instead install a 2-line display over the full width and solder some more memory onto the board. Maybe include the contents of some popular extension ROMs as standard. The competition (Sharp, Casio) did essentially that and were very successful with their Basic-programmables.

Regards
Max