What would your ideal HP calc look like now?

[John R. Graham]

When I was a teenager, my father had an HP 97 on his desk at the university, which had replaced his HP 9100. The 97 was the first one I used extensively, though, and was the first programmable computer I was exposed to. In my father's electronics shop were other Hewlett-Packard instruments: signal generators, counters, a grid dip meter, all packaged in HP's then-signature crinkle grey painted chassis. (My dad was partial to Tektronix osciliscopes, though.)

Now, both my father and I were avid science fiction readers and it must've been the late 70's when I read The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. In it, several of the characters—who were technical professionals or scientisis—carried "pocket computers". They were described incidental to the story in several places in the book:

• He took out his pocket computer and wrote quickly with the attached stylus.
• Suddenly he took out his pocket computer and scribbled madly across its face [JRG: A calculation of the pressure light would impose on a solar sail]. Words and numbers flowed across the surface, and he nodded...
• He took out his pocket computer and scrawled "Church of Him" across its face, then punched for information. The box linked with the ship's library, and information began to roll across its face.
• The three were not on leave; they could be recalled via their pocket computers.
• ...Sally drew letters on the face of the flat box, wiped them, then scrawled a simple problem, then a complex one that would require the ship's computer to help. Then she called up an arbitrary personal data file from ship's memory.
  

As I read this story's description of that technology, I was siezed with an iron-clad conviction: Hewlett-Packard would one day build it—and I would own one.

Thirty-five years later, I still yearn for such a composite device: communicator, information portal, problem solving device that seamlessly integrates with more powerful resources when the problem calls for it. The modern tablet computer approximates the form factor and the web serves the information portal portion of Pournelle and Niven's vision, but I still find myself reaching for my 50g (or 41C) for quick calculations, quick programs, simple data collection tasks. Ironically, although all my calculators are RPN machines, I don't think this visionary machine is one: I think you write—write, mind you, not tap at an on-screen keyboard—calculations and equations, finishing off, perhaps, with some sort of completion gesture. (Or maybe there's an [Enter] key; one never knows.) An obvious part of this offering is a seamless development environment with problem solving tools that span the workstation and the handheld.

Alas, now that this device is (perhaps nearly) within technical reach, there doesn't seem to be enough money in professional instruments. It is with a bit of nostalgic sadness that I realize I'm no longer sure that Hewlett-Packard will build it. I'm sure someone will, though, one day.

- John