Names of the HP48g, HP49G and HP49g+/HP50g case designers

[joeres]

Hello,
does anyone know the names of the designers who designed the casees of HP48g, HP49G and HP49g+/HP50g?

Thank you and best regards
Joerg

[Jake Schwartz]

Hi,

Perhaps this is already known, but the 48 case was designed in house at Corvallis, but I distinctly remember hearing Jean-Yves Avenard saying at the 1999 conference that the case design of the 49G was outsourced. I can't remember if he actually cited the vendor. Perhaps Cyrille remembers.

Jake

[rprosperi]

(04-12-2018 06:42 PM)Jake Schwartz Wrote:  Hi,

...but I distinctly remember hearing Jean-Yves Avenard saying at the 1999 conference that the case design of the 49G was outsourced.

The 49G did not have a case did it, only the slide-on cover? Maybe this is the 49G+ ? Though 1999 is right for 49g... was there a soft case in addition to the slide-on cover?

[striegel]

As I understood it, Joeres was asking about the body of the calculator, not a carrying case. Is that right?

Alan

[Steve Simpkin]

Michael Derocher is listed as the Senior Industrial Designer (Corvallis Division) in reference to the physical design of the HP48SX calculator. See:
http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/Iss...991-06.pdf

[joeres]

(04-12-2018 11:47 PM)striegel Wrote:  As I understood it, Joeres was asking about the body of the calculator, not a carrying case. Is that right?

Alan

Yes, this is correct. I find the body of the HP49g+/HP50g especially special. It somehow reminds me of a female shape.

Thanks for all the answers,
Joerg

[Mikederocher]

Hi all,

Just to chime in here, I was indeed the industrial designer at HP in Corvallis who designed the physical product for the 48 series. The 48s/sx were my first project there, followed by the g/gx and then onto the palmtops and first omnibooks.

The soft carry case was created externally, as an FYI, based on some sketches.

I’m still at HP leading a design team in 3D Printing. Let me know what questions you may have about the late ‘80s to mid ‘90s calculator and palmtop designs, before it went to Singapore.

Cheers,
Mike Derocher

[Gene]

Welcome Mike.

I suspect you are about to be very busy! :-)

Gene

[rprosperi]

Welcome Mike! Thanks for your intro and your generous offer, which before long you may regret a bit...

So I'll start with an easy question.

After having used blue and yellow for shift-key colors and associated labels for so long, why did the 48GX shift to the green/purple (aka aqua/magenta, as well as some other less... complimentary names) color scheme? It has been widely reported that this was a "marketing decision" and while that's easy to believe, I'm more curious why these specific colors were selected.

I'll also add my kudos for an amazingly comfortable, ergonomically satisfying industrial design on the 48 models. These are easily the most comfortable machines (of this class/size) I've ever used; the doors are easily removed yet never lost, the feet are secure and have never fallen out, yet also can be readily removed if needed. In short, an utterly satisfying user experience.

I have some 48SX machines with transplanted black LCDs, which IMHO are the best looking HP machines of all time. Something you can and should be proud of. Thanks for that!

[Mikederocher]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the nice compliment on the design, Bob! The engineering teams on those programs were truly awesome.

As for your question, ultimately these were product management decisions.

Digging back into my rusty memory, the original 48S and SX used the coral/blue color scheme as the accent leveraged from a couple of other concurrent HP scientific calculators in order to form a coherent HP product portfolio. The G/Gx series colors were intended to freshen things up - including the dark gray green body color, and align with the 200LX palmtop (and several other handheld concepts that did not make it to market).

[cyrille de brébisson]

Hello,

I do not remember exactly who the 49 (and 39/40) series was designed by, I am pretty sure that it was done inhouse in Melbourne.

I can tell you that the SW team was not in love with the design, we especially fought against the keyboard (rubber sheet) and the plastic windows over the screen. But they were more or less imposed to us to make the calc super sturdy (which it is!!!) and because "asia does not like stiff keys, they like soft keys"... (from memory)...
As for colors, I do not remember...

When it comes to the later apples series (the 50g, 49G+ and the like), I was, in some respect the designer. I worked with the manufacturer who produced drawings (2D first, then 3D), I would tell them what I liked and did not like from the various drawings, have them combine/remove features until we got to 2 2D models, then from these they produced a number of 3D version and the process would restart until we settled on a specific model.
I however was more of less imposed the colors by marketing, including the "gold" 50g, "because the 50g is the most expensive, so it must have the gold!!!!"... I did create the 48GII (the silver one), which definitely has the best color scheme of the series...
The same process was used for the "true success", the 35s...

Now, industrial design was not my strong point as I never had any training in it, but these turned relatively OK I think....

Cyrille

[grsbanks]

(01-07-2020 06:11 AM)cyrille de brébisson Wrote:  I however was more of less imposed the colors by marketing, including the "gold" 50g, "because the 50g is the most expensive, so it must have the gold!!!!"...

I don't think I've ever seen one of those! I do have a gold coloured 49g+ but I think they were all that colour. I've only ever seen the black and blue 50g models.

[Gene]

I think Cyrille meant the gold 49g+ not a gold 50g. :-)

[grsbanks]

(01-07-2020 12:30 PM)Gene Wrote:  I think Cyrille meant the gold 49g+ not a gold 50g. :-)

That saves me going on a crusade to try and find one

[cyrille de brébisson]

Sorry,

We had so many models names at the time, with + and II and the like that I do not remember which is which and in which order they went... It would take a witch, or at least a true high end calchoolic such as one can easely find in the present company to remember all of that!

Cyrille