Life span of an HP Calculator

[Geoff Quickfall]

(09-13-2024 04:21 AM)knife31 Wrote:  Does anyone know what HP says is the projected life of an HP Calculator, and what the real-life span has been? Just musing.
Randy

Marketing plays a role in life expectancy of any product.

Consider Rolex’s infamous internal memo: “a Rolex sold is a lost customer”. They interpreted that their watches would last a lifetime and the customer would never come back for another as there was no need.

Then consider the restaurant with uncomfortable seating; think MacDonalds or an FAST food outlet. They don’t want lingerers holding the table without constantly buying their product.

Now lets move on to HP. They built electronics and were famous for their quality and design. But what did the market want; the latest and greatest if you could afford it.

Looking at the HP 35, 45, 55, 65, 67, 91, 92, 95, 97 , 19C (mostly) and the 41 (not the halfnut) they were all assembled with screws, connectors and modular parts. They were made to be repaired. Made sense for the money that was forked out for them back in the 70s and 80s.

Then you get to the Spice, Voyagers, Pioneers and (excuse me Richard Nelson) the stretch Pioneers and you find heat stakes, inoperable cases (requiring careful surgery) by design.

So marketing had differing ideas than the engineers that built them. Marketing wanted design obsolescence and unrepairable by the time the Voyagers came out. Fortunately for us the engineers built and designed nice calculators.

Examining the components, all the card reader versions die due to fossilization or goo-ization of the pinch rollers and couples. In the case of the Titans, the gooey printer wheel which needed a rethinking in later production models.

LCD screens that suffer from uv degradation of the polarizer filter or delamination of the LCD panel. These were not tested for life span before adding to the calculator.

So after that long winded, convoluted essay, lets add one more thing, technological change which is accelerating (was it doubling every 5 years? Can’t remember the label assigned to that).

This all comes down to a new calculator with increasing power every few years. Marketing wants you to purchase a new one and the engineers (initially) wanted them to last and last and last.

Who won that diametrically opposed view?

So my red dot 35 is one of the first. Had to clean it up but the LEDs and ICs and the few caps in it allow it to operate as new. But that was intervention. Purchased a 1984 HP 12, USA built. Suffered major fused battery leakage. Had to drill them out. Application of DeOxit red under the ICs as an experiment (thank you Katie Wasserman for that trick) and it is now fully functional.

My 1979 HP 41C tall keys had the keyboard die at 364 days since purchase. Got a new tall keys keyboard under the 1 year warranty. Now there’s a clue on longevity. A 1 year warranty!

So I am going to say, life expectancy is based on design, materials used, the introduction of the next best, and an argument between marketing and engineering.

I would suggest the earlier ones, were better built, but parts by law only need to be available at the manufacturer for 5 years.

So out on sort of a limb here but back to your question, materials, marketing, technologic advances, all combined to limit a calculators life span to about 5 years!

Do they last longer, yes, especially if taken care of (REMOVE THE BATTERY PACK WHEN NOT IN USE) and never by duraleaks.

If you made it this far, I will say the projected life USE of a calculator is driven by marketing and tech advance which is how I came up with 5 years. And of course, everything is disposable now.

Biggest concern now is the “RIGHT TO REPAIR”. A whole new topic as objects are now created to self destruct ala MISSION IMPOSSIBLE” if there is any tampering with the shell. Google “Right to repair”.

Deep breath and Cheers.

Geoff