HP 42s Value Display

[Steve Simpkin]

There is an article by Dennis Harms ("The New Accuracy: Making 2 to the third = 8") in the Nov 1976 issue of HP Journal magazine that discusses how HP implemented the improved accuracy that William Kahan suggested. The first handheld model that incorporated these improvements was the HP-27. On HP models prior to the HP-27, 2^3 = 8.000000002. On the HP-27 and models after it, 2^3 = 8.000000000.
A PDF of this issue is available here: http://hparchive.com/Journals/HPJ-1976-11.pdf