The HP-33E/C that could have been.

[brouhaha]

(01-06-2023 04:59 AM)Matt Agajanian Wrote:  as its purpose was to be an economical programmable upgrade from the 25, wouldn't it have been much more significant for the 33 to have 98 or 99 program steps?

Both vendors made calculators to span a range of customer requirements and price points. While there are a few cases where one can infer that a model from one vendor was significantly inspired by a model from the other, much more of the time they were just trying to offer roughly similar capabilities over a range of models.

Bear in mind that a new calculator model often took 24 months or more from concept to mass production. If one vendor introduced a model in 1976, a model introduced by the other vendor in 1978 wasn't necessarily a specific response to that.