Some HP-50G Questions

[edryer]

Thanks for the replies.

If it helps I spent MANY hours going over the HP48 usenet group archive, this forum via search, hundreds of Amazon reviews, and the Internet and my conclusion from hundreds of posts regarding reliability:

1. LCD lines seem to be limited to the first batches back in '06/'07 and even then they weren't a huge issue, after this no reports (or maybe one or two but may be because the Calculator manufacture was from this period).

2. Poor Keyboard seems a very rare issue. Some reports (and anger) stating the keyboard was "useless" and the key posts weak, however evidence doesn't bear this out as I can find only a handful (literally) of keyboard issues over ten years of postings. So my thoughts are the keyboard is of good quality overall and failures actually very rare. Obviously lessons were learned from the HP49 series.

3. One or two issues of poor solder joints (some work is done manually) - again this is a very rare issue and only a handful of posts. Failure then occurs often when the calculator is dropped (even from inches) and dislodges the joint. Still not statistically significant so it seems very much a non-issue.

So summary is Reliability is actually very good and arguably excellent.

Of course some may disagree ))

Ed


And the Reset hole is sealed internally by the mechanical reset mechanism ... anything going in doesn't reach the PCB, so my toothpaste "cleaning" issue wasn't an issue...