HP 35s firmware defect confirmation

[Jeff O.]

(01-19-2015 09:25 PM)MarkHaysHarris777 Wrote:  Greetings,

My HP35s arrived in the mails a couple of weeks ago; CNA44716YZ

I believe that means it was in a lot produced on week 47 of 2014; if anyone can help me with the rest of the codes there I would appreciate it.

As Angel indicated, the "CNA" part indicates country of manufacture. Actually seems to indicate the factory, as it appears that HP uses two different factories in China, "CNA" and "4CY". My Prime and a couple of 30bs at hand were manufactured by the "4CY" factory, my 10bII+ and my (and your) 35s by the "CNA" factory. According to post no. 5 in this thread, 4CY = Inventec Appliance, and CNA = Kinpo Electronics.

Regarding the next three digits (447), those are indeed supposed to be year (since the most recent decade year) and week. The final four (16YZ) are just the individual sequence or unit number. I don’t know if they use a 36 character set (number 0-10 and letters A-Z) for 1,679,616 possible individual unit identifiers with the four character code, or if they restrict the possible combinations.

I have admit to being surprised that your unit seems to have been manufactured sometime around or after the end of November, 2014. I guess that means that sales of the 35s are fairly decent since they aren’t selling units made in 2012 or something and apparently just made a new batch. (On a side note, I for one have never been convinced that the so-called “week number” indicates the exact week of manufacture. I always assumed that it may indicate the week that production began of a model or version, then they continued to use that week number until they ran out of sequence numbers (i.e., up to 1,679,916 units using the 4 character code, or 99,999 units using the old five-digit numbering sequence, assuming no unit no. 00000), or there was some change or update to the model (e.g. some physical or software change.) So all of the “1147A” HP-35 units were not made in the 47th week of 1971, that's just when they started production. But I have no proof of this theory and could certainly be wrong.)

(01-19-2015 09:25 PM)MarkHaysHarris777 Wrote:  Can anyone confirm or deny whether there are any valid rumors to the effect that HP will be re-releasing the 35s with a firmware update?

I have no special knowledge, but as far as I can see, any and all talk of a re-release with firmware update has always been more wishful thinking than rumor. The 35s was introduced in 2007, and its shortcomings were quickly identified. If it were going to be updated, it seems like it would have been updated long ago. I don't think anyone seriously expects it to be updated today. From what I have heard and read, the technology used is obsolete, so a complete physical and electronic redesign would be required. Does anyone think that the potential market would justify such an expenditure by HP? So it will likely stand as-is as the last in the line of the non-graphing, "classic RPN*" scientific calculators that began in 1972 with the HP-35. It does have some issues, but many do not affect its day-to-day usability, so like you, many users actually like it. So as you say, perhaps it would be wise to get one while you can.

* - Classic RPN, defined by me as a four level stack, where you key values directly into the X stack level, not into an entry buffer, and pressing ENTER pushes it into Y, with stack lift disabled. I.e. with a stack full of zeroes, keying in 4, ENTER, + yields 8, not 4.