Hp 41 memory?

[Ken S]

Saw this LINK on eBay Germany which appears to be some sort of RAM box for the HP41. Does anyone have any info on this unit? I wont be bidding as the seller doesn't take Paypal and I am in the US but would love to have more information on this device.

[BobVA]

Interesting! Some Google translate-o-matic on the photo indicates it's associated with a "building society" ("credit union" in the US). There are references to interest rates, savings accounts, etc. I wonder if it was a dedicated ROM look up module supporting constants for specialist banking calculations? Or maybe just lookup tables for calculations too complex to wait for the 41C to complete?

If so, I'd speculate that the box contains some kind of replaceable / re-programmable ROM's that were swapped out as needed to support changes in interest rates or whatever other banking arcana they needed to update regularly?

[Dave Frederickson]

The item is identified as an MBK EPROM Box at hp-collection.org.

http://hp-collection.org/41accessories.html#storage

[Ken S]

Thanks for the info, feel better about not being able to bid on it. Without an eprom programmer it would be pretty useless to me.

I know they made some big RAM boxes for surveying which could be useful, but I haven't seen any of them in decades.

[Sylvain Cote]

It is definitively an EPROM box.
Here are some pictures of my unit: overview & zoom in
Sylvain

[Leviset]

I can’t magnify the image to the right of the MBK but I suspect it’s a Gold Griffin which would identify it as Midland Bank. I worked as an IT freelance Contractor for them between 1986-1990 in the UK. In the 1950s they were the largest Banking Company in the World, whereas their humiliating attempt to get a hold into the American Finance Sector in the 1980s by buying Crocker Bank (the name says it all if you’re English!) lost them nearly £1bn and almost the complete collapse of the Midland Group! Apparently Crocker had invested heavily in property all along the San Andreas fault line! Wells Fargo I believe bought Crocker for $1 and then HSBC absorbed Wells Fargo, and then HSBC Increased their 15% ownership of Midland Bank in the early 1990s to 100%. A few years later the Midland Bank logo/name disappeared into History. ‘Round and round it goes and where it stops no one knows’

[Guenter Schink]

(12-03-2018 04:19 AM)Sylvain Cote Wrote:  It is definitively an EPROM box.
Here are some pictures of my unit: overview & zoom in
Sylvain

It is from this German institute . As some have said: a building society or a thrift institution.

Günter