Happy Birthday HP-35

[Karl-Ludwig Butte]

Dear All,

The Heinz Nixdorf Forum honors the introduction of the HP-35 50 years ago today with a blog-post! Unfortunately it is only available in German.

Happy birthday, HP-35

[teenix]

...and many are still working out of the box.

In this day and age, that's truly amazing, a consumer driven economy's nightmare ;-)

cheers

Tony

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

2 3 ENTER↑ 4 ÷ e^x STO
π 2 × ENTER↑ ENTER↑ RCL
+ x⇄y CHS RCL + × √ᵡ RCL
+ 4 ÷ π ÷ 11 CHS π x^y +

——

Or, for integer results:

• π 25 ENTER 5 e^x EEX 4
  / - x^y 1/x + ENTER e^x
  - 35 ENTER + + 1/x 1/x
• 2 √x 96 + √x √x ENTER
  e^x - π ln 10 + e^x 1/x
  + 35 ENTER + + 1/x 1/x
  

[Massimo Gnerucci]

   

50 ENTER↑
:P

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(01-04-2022 08:34 PM)Massimo Gnerucci Wrote:  50 ENTER↑

If I had a Red-Dot 35 I would spare all keystrokes I could as well :-)

[Eddie W. Shore]

Happy Birthday HP 35 - here's to another 50 years!

(Also, thank you Google Translate)

[badaze]

[TomC]

An interesting sidenote to this history is that in 1972, Hewlett Packard was strictly a commercial electronic instrument supplier - providing equipment for the commercial, radio, media and military industries. Hewlett Packard was not a consumer electronics company. The HP35 was their 'entry' to the consumer electronics industry. Their naivete' was shown by the initial estimate of annual production of 10,000 units whereas the demand was on the order of 100,000 units. I remember the times well; I was just entering university and using HP instrumentation along with my slide rule in electronics education. [I rapidly saved my pennies for a HP45 shortly followed by a HP65.]

And speaking of HP history, in 1939, the newly formed 'Hewlett Packard' companies first product delivery was test equipment to assist in the production of Walt Disneys 'Fantasia' film.

TomC

[Steve Simpkin]

A nice page on the origins of the HP-35.
http://codex99.com/design/the-hp35.html

There also used to be several really good articles on http://www.hpmemory.org but that site appears to be gone now.

[Jake Schwartz]

(01-10-2022 11:20 AM)TomC Wrote:  Their naivete' was shown by the initial estimate of annual production of 10,000 units whereas the demand was on the order of 100,000 units.

TomC

At the HHC2008 conference in Corvallis, retired HP employee Sharon Butterfield reminisced about the early HP-35 days, whereby they didn't have a process to handle checks and cash for HP-35 sales. So as the orders came in, they stashed the cash and checks into a file cabinet until it filled to the gills, whereby they started using a second one. Finally, when they convinced the higher-ups that they needed some sort of method to process the incoming funds, there were multiple (I think she said three) full cabinets with cash and checks - hundreds of thousands of dollars worth - which were finally scooped up and processed. What a nice problem to have! :-)
Jake

[Valentin Albillo]

.
Hi, all,

(01-04-2022 11:44 AM)Karl-Ludwig Butte Wrote:  The Heinz Nixdorf Forum honors the introduction of the HP-35 50 years ago today [...] Happy birthday, HP-35

Better late than never ... I'd like to contribute to the celebration of the HP-35's 50^th anniversary with these two documents from my site (click to view or download):

Long Live the HP-35

• 5-page article, belonging to my "Long Live" series, which is intended as a commemorative article for the HP-35's 35th anniversary, and I think you'll agree it's quite an original approach to it.
  
  It highlights all the groundbreaking capabilities of the HP-35 and their importance from a historical point of view, an further it includes three examples featuring four small "programs" (for a non-programmable calculator no less !), addressing such topics as root finding and numerical integration among others, as well as providing the appropriate historical context and a few personal anecdotes to spice it all. As you'll see, it's certainly a one-of-a-kind article.

HP Raw Scan - A Capability Study on the HP-35 Pocket Calculator

• (10-page PDF document) The HP-35 is a 35-key, pocket-sized scientific and engineering calculator. [...] In terms of general advantages, this unit provides much of the problem-solving power of a desktop scientific calculator, combined with the portability and convenience of the slide rule. Unlike the slide rule, it offers unprecedented accuracy and provides answers in a fraction of the time required for slide rule calculation.
  
  This Capability Report will explain and evaluate special features of Hewlett-Packard's HP-35 Pocket Calculators, typical applications with comparison of solution times (*), how the unit operates, advanced technological features and general specifications.
  
  (*) "The following problems were selected from engineering notebooks and were given to members of Hewlett-Packard's own engineering staff for solutions. Each engineer was asked to time himself in working each problem in two ways: first, with a pilot model of the HP-35, and second, by conventional slide rule methods. Actual results are shown with comparison times, together with keystrokes for the HP-35 and scratch notes required for arriving at the slide rule solutions."

V.

[lrdheat]

I have so many memories of the wonder of the HP-35 that my dad bought and received in the springtime of 1973. I still have a fondness for my slide rules, but this was just on a whole new modern age level! The meteorology department at Florida State University had 2 desks for students with HP-35’s secured to cradles on the desktop to use in the meteorology department library. Many of the professors, of course, all had them. I still have my dad’s unit in mint condition in my work library. I still get a kick out of the manual that spoke of this being something that a Walter Mitty or a Dick Tracy might have…