TI-58C not powering up

[Steve Simpkin]

(04-07-2022 11:45 AM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  ...
The safest option would be to remove the battery and connect the contact srprings to a regulated (laboratory) power supply using crocodile clips. Set the voltage to 3.6V DC and mind the polarity. Which is not difficult because contrary to HP - and I say this to our members here who enjoy bashing Ti :-) - Texas Instruments undertook the effort to put polarity labels next to the battery connectors!
...
Max

The lack of labeling or even documenting something as simple as the battery polarity by HP reminds me of the battle Dr. William Kahan had with HP management about adding additional explanation chapters for the Solve and Integrate functions in the HP-34C manual.

"That’s how the HP-34C was born. They agreed to do it, and then like a thunderclap, they were appalled when I said, “You know, we’re going to have to put some guidance into the manual because people who use these keys, especially the integrate key, they can fool themselves. These things cannot be foolproof. There will be situations where people will get misleading answers, and they need a little bit of guidance about that.” “Kahan, you just told us to do this stuff, and now you tell us that you’re going to get wrong answers! I mean, all this time, we’ve been listening to you tell us how to get the right answer, invariably, every time!” Well, the difficulty was then that I’d have to go to the manual writers. But there was a Hewlett-Packard policy which said, “We are professionals, and we sell to professionals. We tell them what the device does, and they figure out how to use it. We’re not writing tutorial material in our manuals.” And I tried to explain, “Look—this time you’ve got to put some tutorial material in the manuals. You really must. Otherwise, folks are going to fool themselves.”

Well, the managers wouldn’t do it, but I had persuaded Barkin, and I can’t remember the name of the other guy. It’s probably in there somewhere. There were two guys who were writing the manuals, and I persuaded them. I think persuasion is the wrong word. This was a case of subversion. I subverted them and got them to do something that their managers had told them not to do. The manual writers listened to my arguments and decided that I was right, and their managers were wrong. And that’s a dangerous decision, you know. You can get fired for that. They wrote the two extra chapters into the manual, which said something about the solve key and something about the integrate key, and a little bit to warn you. And I had written up some more stuff, which ultimately got into the Hewlett-Packard Journal. And the managers were outraged."

Dr. William Kahan Oral History:
http://history.siam.org/pdfs2/Kahan_final.pdf