HP41 (hypothetical) printer accessory

[TASP]

Was looking at some old promotional material for the HP19C (vol 3, 1977 HP Personal Calculator Digest) and was struck by how handy (and compact) the printer mechanism is.

Does anyone know if HP ever considered an accessory for the 41, perhaps similar in size and shape to the card reader, that had a printer in it ??

Wouldn't that be slick and useful? Not to denigrate the 82143/82162, but giving the 41 a print capability and maintaining the handheldedness of it would have been quite a feature.

The HP19C printer is above the (LED) display, (not removable) and similar (but wider) than the 41 card reader accessory in size and how it appended to the calculator housing, curious if there was any design study at HP looking into this.

[4ster]

That would be a useful accessory.

The 82143/82162 printers have a large battery pack (about the same size as the card reader) to run the printer for an extended period without being tied to the charger. The power density of NiCad batteries of the era was pretty low, that may be why a card reader sized printer wasn't pursued.

[TASP]

AHA !!

The 82052 battery pack is way bigger than the 4 N cells in the 41. That would be a deal killer for sure.

Appreciate that info. Saw the 19C printer, and I have to admit, it is just a real jewel of a feature, and even with NiMH N cells, the battery life would still be brief, and making the accessory printer housing big enough to hold the 82052 pack would really be pushing things.

[Ángel Martin]

somewhere I read that internal HP Corvallis joke about the Card Reader needing a 12-v car battery to work properly - you can imagine what a printer would have needed then...

Yet the 19C had it nicely done, so why not on the 41 too, maybe more power-hungry advanced features perhaps...

[TASP]

The 19 is a real peach. Tip of the hat to the design team that pulled it off. I can imagine shrinking up a printer and wedging it into something according to the article was 6 1/2" x 3 1/2" x 1 3/5" and weighed only 12.4 oz with battery and 25' of paper was not an easy bit of engineering. The 19 looks like it has functionality not too far south of a 67 (both had 5 quads of ROM, granted the printer functions took up some of that), all in all, it seems a tad underestimated/appreciated.

[TASP]

LOL, my thoughts keep coming back to this.


I'm blaming my CAS. It's annoying to covet a non-existent HP41 accessory though, even if it doesn't cost any $$$.

The uber-coolness of such a gadget springs to mind every time I see an HP19 (or HP10) or even adverts for the compatible paper size.

Darn the HP10 and it's astonishing rarity, even if I had 2, I wouldn't consider 'Franken-steining' one of them into a card reader housing. And the HP19C is just too nice to even thinking about decapitating . . . .