Date/serial of Voyager switch to single rigid PCB?

[brouhaha]

Does anyone know approximately at what date or serial number HP switched from the original Voyager construction (two PCB, flex PCB for electronics and LCD, separate rigid PCB for keyboard, with ESD film wrapping) to the single rigid PCB? I suppose the switch may have occurred at different dates at different production facilities and for different Voyager models.

[Mark Power]

Chuck McCord was the Single Chip Series Ten (SST) IC project manager, as he described at the HPCC 40th Conference and in the book RCL40.

I've had a look at Chuck's SST slides and he doesn't provide a date for the switchover, but he includes photos and serial numbers of examples of the original design and SST models so that could act as a starting point.

[Steve Simpkin]

Eric already heard this but for reference, Bob Prosperi and Charles McCord estimated that the changeover occur sometime in 1982. Any units made in 1983 or later should be the single PCB versions. See the link below.

https://youtu.be/PLATQIU7h-o?t=1942

[brouhaha]

(11-10-2022 09:09 PM)Mark Power Wrote:  I've had a look at Chuck's SST slides and he doesn't provide a date for the switchover, but he includes photos and serial numbers of examples of the original design and SST models so that could act as a starting point.

Thanks, but the change to SST was years after the switch from two-PCB to single-PCB. When Chuck gave his presentation at HHC, he mentioned (and I'm very much paraphrasing) that there were a lot of naysayers for SST, because they thought the Voyager calculators (including 12C) would be imminently and totally replaced by Pioneer models, and that the remaining Voyager sales before that happened wouldn't save enough in manufacturing cost to cover the NRE cost of the SST. Of course, time has proven the naysayers VERY wrong. The Pioneers were later to market than expected, and the 12C never went away.

[Didier Lachieze]

Did you see this discussion ?

[brouhaha]

(11-10-2022 11:52 PM)Steve Simpkin Wrote:  Eric already heard this but for reference, Bob Prosperi and Charles McCord estimated that the changeover occur sometime in 1982. Any units made in 1983 or later should be the single PCB versions. See the link below.

Watching that again is interesting, and I didn't catch it when I was present, but I think Bob's answer is about the change to single-PCB (which is what I'm asking about in this thread), and that the change to SST (single chip) was some years later. I have multiple 1984 and 1985 Voyagers that are single-PCB but not SST. An Chuck pointed out, the SST chip is covered by the Smiconductor Chip Protection Act (SCPA), which puts the earliest possible date for SST chips near the end of 1984. Because of the need for a second tapeout, and all of the verification Chuck talks about, it's unlikely that SST Voyagers hit the market before late 1985. The earliest SST Voyager I've got is 1988, but I don't have any 1986 or 1987 Voyagers to check.

[brouhaha]

(11-11-2022 05:41 PM)Didier Lachieze Wrote:  Did you see this discussion ?

Thanks! I though I'd seen a thread about it, but my search wasn't turning that up.