Any HP calculator fans around?

[elgarak]

You may know that HP is celebrating the 35th anniversary of their release of the original HP35 this year.

In celebration, they release the HP35s. That thing looks cool! Very retro.

It's available to buy sine the 17th; mine should be here tomorrow.

According to all reports, the innards of the 35s are based on the (lukewarm received) 33s, which in turn is not really an HP calculator itself, but made by the Taiwanese Kinpo electronics. Not a bad calculator really, but had a keypad you had to get used to and a display which was not easy to read. Both are obviously improved on the 35s! Calculating-wise, the 33s was on of the best calcs I ever worked with, except for some minor bugs (like slightly wrong results with cos of values near 90 deg resp. pi/2 rad). There are reports that the 35s still has the same bugs.

Ah, well. Still looks cool! Will learn more tomorrow.

 

[paulr]

The physical shape of that calculator sort of resembles the classic HP-35 but nothing else about it seems to have even a slight resemblance.

 

[elgarak]

That's kinda the point, isn't it?

Besides, the main critic points of all the latest HP calcs were the physical attributes. If HP wants to continue their calculator legacy, this is the way to do it (unfortunately, the calculator market is shrinking).

 

[Archangel]

I use my 15C all the time.

 

[Brlux]

I have a 48GX I use daily and love it. That is one tough calculator I have been using it for over 10 years and I bought it used.

 

[paulr]

That's kinda the point, isn't it?

Besides, the main critic points of all the latest HP calcs were the physical attributes. If HP wants to continue their calculator legacy, this is the way to do it (unfortunately, the calculator market is shrinking).

I'd have been more interested in a reproduction of the original HP-35, either a faithful replica (including the LED display and firmware quirks) or a modern reimplementation (stick to the original spirit but use LCD's and fix a few oddities like the way the trig functions clobbered the T register).

 

[CM]

I *was* an HP calculator fan. I had an HP41CV, 32s, and my wife's got a 15c. My 32s died so I picked up the 33s to replace it and it sucks. Whoever designed this was from the design college, not from the engineering college. The keyboard layout is un-intuitive and not logical. The name Hewlett Packard used to connote quality, innovation, and a level of excellence achieved by few companies but today's HP is just another run of the mill company. :thumbsdow

 

[chmsam]

A bit of personal history and a reality check...

As a freshman in 1972, a kid on my hall had the brand new, whiz bang HP calculator and was it ever a popular item. It was borrowed up and down the hall and back again! He'd worked a government job and therefore managed to get a really good deal on it with government pricing. Heck, it could do algebra and trig functions. It had memory for, what, 10 lines or so? Rechargeable batteries and all you had to do was plug in the charger. Man, what a hot piece of technology! Of course, now you can get a calculator that does the same thing, minus the RPN, for about $10.

His really good government employee price? IIRC, about $400. That's 1972 dollars, remember. Can anyone adjust for inflation?

Ah, nostalgia.

But yes, I too loved the LED readout.

 

[Phredd]

I'd have been more interested in a reproduction of the original HP-35, either a faithful replica (including the LED display and firmware quirks)

That's exactly what I thought. So, I dug out my HP 29c. Plugged in the charger and grabbed a moment of nostalgia with the classic LED display. It's actually still a pretty useful calculator.

Phredd

 

[paulr]

You know, I can't really remember the last time I used a calculator for anything, especially a scientific calculator, and I have a couple of HP's right now and have owned around 10 of them over the years, and my ex-housemate collects them and has at least 100 so I know a fair amount about them. I have a dinky keychain 4-function calculator in my daypack that I occasionally use to calculate gas mileage or something like that, but probably not more than a couple times a year. These days, it's almost always easier to bring up a computer window and calculate something in it, then to bother messing with an actual calculator.

 

[Dynacolt]

I have a great HP 71B - way ahead of its time and still working flawlessly, lots of fun and can create some interesting sounds using the timer and beep function programmed to pitch, loop, warble etc. I always found it amazing such a small instrument came with an encylopaedic-sized manual!

My Dad had a HP45c that I used to program as a kid so he could calculate pages of spreadsheet data. And programming was so simple, especially with the RPN process being intuitive, and having simple stacks to work with.

Nowadays, I rarely use a calculator, but if I do it's the one on the computer, the sci calc on my Xircom Rex, or I just grab my mobile phone for the basics.

I just love the build quality of those old HPs (and the flickering parity-display of the LEDs as they ran their programs ).

Anyody got a HP01 going cheap??? (I can't really justify getting one but they must be the most collector-worthy of watches)

Dave.

 

[elgarak]

The sad thing is that the 33s is not really a bad calculator, when it comes down to the math and calculating. It's just that the bad UI resulted in an overall bad product.

It seems that HP is capable of learning from their mistakes -- I got the 50g, which is an awesome machine, except that is does not appear as robust as the older HPs (I doubt it will survive 35 years).

It appears this 35s has none of the quirky outward problems of the 33s.

 

[BobVA]

Mine arrived on Friday. Great homage to the old 35/45/55 series. I'm still working through the manual but it seems like a pretty good daily driver. The keyboard action is good, the layout is certainly an improvement over the wacky 33s and I really like the way it handles complex numbers as a single entry on the stack. Also like the old school big ENTER key on the center left of the keyboard.

Nice case, too.

Cheers,
Bob

 

[turbodog]

I've got an original 32s with full docs. Seems these things are going for a nice price on ebay now.

Good equipment. Got me through ME.

 

[LA OZ]

I love my Hp 12c, particularly the one that me made in USA, Singapore, and Brazil. I got 5 of them . Those that was made in china are crap. The keypad in the new 12c give me a cheap feeling. I hope the limited edition 35s have a nice keypad. Let me know please.

 

[RA40]

In a past life (college kiddie) I bought a 17BII. The calculator is still with me today though sadly, using the advanced features/functions has long passed from my brain.

 

[Data]

Thanks for the heads up, I just ordered one.

 

[KC2IXE]

I have a 41cv (which sits in my drawer at work - faster than pulling calculator up in windows), and a 48sx sitting in my desk here at home

 

[mudman cj]

I bought a used HP 48S in 1992 and then sold it to get a new 48GX in 1994. I still use it every day and hate when I have to use a "regular" calculator. Once you get used to RPN and using a stack, there is no going back!

 

[mansell2]

RPN - you may hate learning it - but once you do you'll never go back. Here is a PC calc I use for all the RPN fans. Excalibur