HP-48 FRAM Cards

[JDW]

Thank you for your reply, Ron.

I am not a student. I graduated from engineering school back in 1994, and I purchased my first HP calc, a 28S, in 1990. I've been using that same 28S for the last 26 years. But recently it has developed problems with a couple keys, such that I must press down on the top of the key as normal, but I must also press against the back of the calc too, in order to get those keys to respond. That problem prompted me to investigate the purchase of a replacement 28S, since I am not into drilling holes in my existing pristine 28S (which would make it look like a horrid monster).

I found a new-in-box 28S on EBAY, which included the manuals. I wanted the manuals too because I lost mine years ago. So I used BUY IN NOW and won. I then sent Paypal payment to the seller only seconds after I won. But after several days the seller never accepted my payment. Knowing his GMAIL address, I put him into my circle on Google+ and found out his real name, then I proceeded to Google him and found he was arrested earlier this year. So I stopped my payment and just waited out the EBAY 32 days for the auction to be auto-terminated. I guess the fellow was back in jail because he never responded to any of my emails, nor my contact on FaceBook (yes, I even found his FB page).

So I then searched Craig's Lists nationwide (there are search engines for that) and found one seller of a new-in-box 28S with manuals. This fellow is a collector of all things HP! He's only selling because, apparently, he is in deep financial straights now, having been out of work a long time. I even called him on the phone and talked an hour. But in the end, he never sold it to me because he said his car broke down on the way to an interview and now he lacks the means to even make a trip to the post office!

So I took this two cases to heart and said to myself, "a replacement 28S in good condition is not meant to be." I wanted a new or near-new calc so I could be assured of many more years of use before the keys developed problems.

And so, I went back to EBAY, fingers crossed, and found a 48GX seller. I sniped the auction (naughty me) and won, paying $123.85 with shipping. I then heard good things about the 50g, so I bought a refurbished unit for $51 with shipping. I also bought Thomas Barber's "Definitive User's Guide to the HP 48g/49g/50g" from Samson Cables, although I've found it pretty dry reading and lacking in graphical illustrations. For that category of book, Mier Jedrzejowicz's "Customize Your Hp-28" tome is much better. Anyway, I then purchased a wickedly expensive $40 USB cable for the 48GX (which included $10 in shipping) from myteknovo on EBAY. I've been using that to transfer libraries from my iMac to the 48GX via the excellent KERMIT tool Hoppi.

I love the 48GX because it reminds me of the good build quality of the 28S. The 50g isn't bad, but it doesn't "feel" the same. Old timers should know what I mean by that. But boy is the 50g fast. And newRPL by Claudio looks to make that speed demon even faster. To me, that's exciting.

So, as you can see, I am now in the HP "enthusiast" category, although I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a "collector" insofar as I intend to use these devices and pass them to my children as they enter advanced math in upper high school.

I've been participating in the forums here since my 48GX and 50g purchase, and it was here I read about FRAM tech. To me, that is exciting because you don't need to worry about batteries. Perhaps a battery matters little when you use the calc all the time, but what if many months go by and you don't use it? So you see the benefit to FRAM. It completely eliminates worry about data loss.

I've not decided what I will ultimately do, but when the EBAY seller comes out with his new lot of 128k FRAM cards, I will likely buy one. Thank you for alerting me to the 512k FRAM card. It's from the same seller.

Anyway, the fact remains that if 10 people want a 1MB FRAM card, that same seller will modify his PCB layout and make them for sale. I just want to mention it to see if there is any interest, despite the fact the 48GX is old and perhaps not too worthy of expensive add-ons like that anymore.

Best wishes.