What would your ideal HP calc look like now?

[Raymond Del Tondo]

(03-23-2014 04:03 PM)walter b Wrote:  Sorry, Raimund, you may not been aware of the task being to name scientific/engineering calculators.

Sorry Walthser, I was fully aware of the task, that's why the 17BII and 17BII+silver are in the list. On both calcs logs and Pi are available, and with some effort trigs can be implemented, as has been proven long time ago.

(03-23-2014 04:03 PM)walter b Wrote:  Looking at your (then reduced) list, I wonder in what aspects an HP-15C, -32S, or -32SII are better than a WP 34S. IMHO the latter runs circles around those oldies in all aspects, though I admit being slightly biased in that matter.

The older calcs (Voyagers and Pioneers) were made with the form-follows-function concept in mind, the 30b with its shiny surface and questionable edges was designed with "glossy design" as one of the highest priorities.
The 17BII+silver showed that non-glare surfaces and displays still can be made.

The "wp 34s" has many functions, some may say too many per key. But unfortunately, it has nearly no RAM.
Ok, the 15C and 32S/II also have some hundred bytes only, but the 17BII and 42S have 8K each, and the 17BII+silver has a whopping 32K.


About the dream RPN calc, your list would be ok for me, with some slight changes

• RPN for obvious reasons,
• the function set of the HP-42S,
• a sturdy, reliable keyboard with tactle feedback and durable keys (like the one of e.g. an HP-41, HP-42, etc),
• at least the display resolution of the HP-42S (primarily for allowing sofkeys),
• six keys more than the HP-42S (for softkeys not overwriting regular functions),
• a standard communication interface (like USB) or a standard medium for data exchange (like SD) with a PC (so I may use a PC for program editing if I want to),
• a reasonable amount of user-accessible memory for data and programs,
• flash memory for on-device backup, library storage, etc.,
• a power consumption like a Voyager or a Pioneer,
• all that within the size of a Pioneer and as properly packed.
  

The keys in the HP-67 need too much force to press, and have too much travel between movement end points. May make sense in the next rocket to moon, but not on earth.

An additional row of keys would be ok, but not really necessary (IMHO), as the 42S showed.