The greatest HP breakthrough Scientific calcs

[zeno333]

What are the great HP scientific calculators that were state of the art when introduced...I would say the first was the HP67. A fellow student in College whose Dad was a science professor there, (His Dad bought him the calculator), had a HP67 in the Fall of 1976. The first time I saw a HP67 was his, and he wrote a moon landing program for it. Still remember that. The next milestone would be the HP41 series. Then we have the HP15, and the HP42. Then the HP48GX. And lastly, the HP Prime. Any others that should be included?

[Kostas Kritsilas]

What springs to mind immediately is the HP-35, of course, the first scientific calculator. no, it wasn't programmable, but it was the first scientific calculator that impacted a wide range of fields, from science to engineering, and pretty much obsoleted the slide rule. It was not programmable, but you asked about scientific calculators, not programmable ones.

Second one is the predecessor of the HP-67, the HP-65. It pretty much paved the path to the HP-67, and arguably the SR-52 and TI-59. First calculator with magnetic card storage. I am not saying it was the best of the HP line, but it was the first, and one of the first programmable calculators.

I think the HP-15C fits into this as well. In many ways, it is more advanced than the original HP-41, with built in functions for matrix operating and operating with imaginary numbers, as well as a workable solver. It also had a lot of programming steps for a relatively low priced machine.

[Steve Simpkin]

While you can use many different metrics to decide on what was "great", I like the broad categories that William C. Wickes used in HP-48 Insights, Vol 1 (also in HP-28 Insights).
First generation - HP-35
Second generation - HP-65
Third generation - HP-28C

See the following excerpt for his reasoning.

   

[KeithB]

I don't think the Prime is that much of a breakthrough. It is an amazing calculator, but it is a pretty obvious evolution from what was before. The only thing it really adds is a touchscreen, and phones had made those ubiquitous and even were used by the various emulators.

I agree that the 41 was groundbreaking.

Though the PC killed them, the HP-75 and -71 were also ahead of the curve, and actually useful as small controllers as well as calculators. (Well, the 71 was)

[Dave Britten]

My take on it:

35: First pocket scientific calculator
65: First pocket programmable calculator
25: Pocket programmable calculator in a price range accessible to students (~$200)
41: First alphanumeric and expandable programmable calculator from HP
11C: Breakthroughs in size, durability, and power consumption
15C: Huge advance in matrix and complex number handling
28C: First calculator with symbolic algebra

I don't know that I would call the Pioneer line particularly groundbreaking, as LCD calculators of that size were quite common by then, but they were all extremely good.

And if we consider the financial models, I would say the 80, 38E/C, and 12C are of the greatest significance, with an honorable mention to the excellent solver used in the 17B, 27S, 18C, etc.

[rawi]

I would like to add the HP 34C, the first calculator with SOLVE and INTEGRATE function, well ahead of the HP 15C.

[halbitton]

Let's not forget the HP 25C...the first calculator with CONTINOUS MEMORY. That was a pretty big deal at the time.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

I really only see the HP-35 as the "greatest breakthrough" in scientific calculators. Everything we are talking about here already existed in the form of desktop calculators and/or workstations many years before.

It was a bold move from HP to try and miniaturise a scientific desktop calculator into a handheld battery powered device. But once it had been done with the 35, everything else was just a logical consequence (programmability, I/O capability, continuous memory, alphanumerics, high level programming language, symbolics, ...) and implemented into handheld devices not only by HP but other manufacturers as well.

Regards
Max