wp34s: the strict rpn sorta bugs me

[HP67]

(12-20-2013 11:09 AM)walter b Wrote:  Pauli made some attempts to get HP to produce some keyboards for the WP 34S. IIRC, the lower limit for a production run would have been some 10 000 pieces and about as many $ for tooling -- please compare with the number of WP 34S living on this planet so far. We are two orders of mangnitude below that limit AFAIK.

d

I don't know that there are shops making double-shot keys on every street corner, but there do seem to be some still doing business. The guys on the geekhack forums for computer keyboard junkies have managed to order unique and custom sets of double-shots for Cherry keyboards. The main thing that kept me from trying the 34S was also the keys. I wonder if some motivated person could track down the places (probably in Taiwan or Japan) that are set up for making double-shots and send them some stock keys and maybe some pics of the classic HP keys and get a quote for a reasonable number of sets double-shot and stamped properly for the 34S. It would sure make a super-nice package.

As far as the original topic goes, I started out with an HP 67 in 1981 and got a 12C sometime in the 1980s. I am perfectly happy with RPN and do have to think hard sometimes when I use a more modern calculator. So +1 for true blue RPN from me.

[HP67]

(12-21-2013 12:07 PM)bhtooefr Wrote:  I'm wondering how open HP would be to open sourcing the 50g firmware, actually (even though it *IS* going to be a mess of old Saturn-era code, third-party code, and ARM code), once it's discontinued. (It might be a bit too optimistic to ask that while it's still available, really.)

Well I doubt they'll open source it since they don't seem to have any history of doing that. An interesting question is whether they will mind or make any effort to stop people who are able from disassembling it and making that available if indeed that has not already been done, since people were able to do it with earlier models and did not face any particular corporate wrath.

[bhtooefr]

I thought they released assembler source for the HP-41 family while it was still in production, even.