Voyager design history?

[Steve Simpkin]

(10-19-2024 11:15 PM)naddy Wrote:  

(10-19-2024 10:04 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  As a consultant, Professor William Kahan assisted Hewlett Packard with the mathematical functions of a number of its calculators over the years.

I'll make a wild guess that he was the author of the "Accuracy of Numerical Calculations" appendix in the Advanced Functions Handbook. That part feels like it was written by a different author than the other parts.

...

Very good guess
Around 1977 Professor William Kahan, came up with an algorithm for a numeric solver and really wanted HP to implement it in a calculator. The problem was that HP marketing had no interest in making a model with a solver. Their marketing studies convinced them that their customers did not want a calculator with a "Solve" key. Eventually Professor Kahan managed to "convince" the person in charge of one of the HP calculator development groups, who really wanted a numeric Integration function, into making the HP-34C. Even after HP committed resources to making the HP-34C, HP management did not want to fully document the new functionality. The full story of the development of the HP-34C is very entertaining as is the story behind the development of the HP-15C.

"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!” "

Dr. Kahan’s discussion of the HP-34C starts on page 152. How he used trickery and deceit to get HP to include the Appendixes that describe the nuances in using the Solve and Integrate functions starts on page 154.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jlg9EWQ...zwcol/edit