17bii, 17bii+ and 30B, or "Why did the 30B die?"

[Tim Wessman]

There were two major issues with the 30b.

1. The "metal" look was done using a process that was designed for (at the time) high end cell phones. That manufacturing process is for very high volume (like each roll does 50 million units, but quite expensive for the volumes calculators sell at. Unfortunately, someone (huzzah ID...) didn't do the research and the printed foil that gets sandwiched into the plastic "expires" after 1 year. So basically, they (the company with the proprietary process) refused to make any more without buying another roll of expensive foil after using only a fraction of it. Cost wise, it wasn't feasible to do another roll and hence that killed it right there.

2. The 20/30B just wasn't selling at the levels wanted. Basically, it was "new" and nobody (calculator vendors) could understand why they should sell that vs the already selling fine 12C, the exising 10<something> calculator (they don't have any idea, just know that the HP 10 unit sells fine), and the BA-II TI units. Even though you could basically use the 20/30B as a direct drop in replacement for the BA-II textbooks and materials, nobody could effectively communicate that to anyone.

So there you go. Nothing to do with microprocessor.