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HP Calculator Department Closing
Posted by
Hemos
on Sat Nov 03, 2001 05:34 PM
from the it's-the-end-of-the-line dept.
from the it's-the-end-of-the-line dept.
Beans writes "Today is a sad day for the engineering calculator world. HP calculator department is closing. www.calc.org has the scoop. Leaving employees just announced it on comp.sys.hp48. You can check google groups for the original posts."
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LCD fun (Score:4, Funny)
Oh, I wouldn't worry about that (Score:2)
No Way! (Score:2)
?Lives Notation Polish Reversed? (Score:4, Funny)
enter
Is
enter
This
enter
+ + +
Re:?Lives Notation Polish Reversed? (Score:3, Informative)
That's not right. (Score:5, Funny)
Reverse Polish Notation Lives
and
This sad is.
Hey, that's almost like English! Makes you wonder.
Parent
Dark days indeed... (Score:4, Interesting)
For me, the 48G was my first exposure to hacking hardware. They had port you could buy (not an option) or build an adaptor - and could use kermit to communicate with it.
Students today have no idea what they are missing when they pull out their TI...
Look at ticalc.org for TI hacks (Score:3, Informative)
Marketing part of the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It is true that the main usage field for HP calculators is engineering and science, but in my opinion HP should have tried to sell more calculators to high school students and schools, because if someone is used to use TIs he is unlikely to switch to HP unless forced (after all, 170$ for an HP49g is not exactly cheap).
It's a pity to see the HP calcs go. Let's hope the HP calculator community keeps being vital.
Re:Marketing part of the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
As for me -- I'm going to go out and buy a 48gx as quickly as possible.
Re:Marketing part of the problem (Score:3, Informative)
Then you get to college and their so afraid people will cheat (by storing notes in their calculators) -- its no calculators for most classes -- and when they're absoultley necessary -- a shitty scientific is allowed
This is how it is at UCR atleast
An Incalculable Loss... (Score:2, Funny)
Sorry.
Economics or Preference? (Score:2)
I never could understand the reverse polish notation, but I always thought the IR in the HPs were a much better idea than the physical link cables of the TIs.
Reminds me of a certain UF... (Score:2, Informative)
HP reminds me of DEC (Score:5, Interesting)
Blame Educational Institutions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Come university, I went out and splurged for my 48GX. Although I have yet to take the time to learn all of this beast-of-a-calculater's functionality, I know that if I did I would be even more productive. HP calculators are truly ingenious tools.
One thing I must say though is that I don't think it's fair that some educational institutions *make* students buy other more conventional calculaters. Specially in the fields and engineering and computer science. Students miss out by using the old-fashioned calculator, eg: the TI-8[69?]. Students learn and become dependent on their calculaters as they don't ever learn different ways of attacking the given problem. Blame the schools for not letting their students use a real calculater.
Alas, my 48SX (Score:4, Funny)
Alas.
Very Sad (Score:4, Interesting)
HP-41C's were the best (Score:5, Interesting)
The were some of us hackers who used a backdoor to do "synthetic programming". One trick was to get the goose to fly backwards. Anybody remember that? How many of us have grown up to be linux/unix hackers? I bet most of us . . .
Oh the good old days . . .
Smokin' Joe
Someone Explain! (Score:2, Informative)
sad to hear this (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder if a palm would be a good replacement (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets compare. $179 for a top of the line HP calculator vs $149 for a palm m100 with a todo list, games, calender, alarm, free compilers out on the web, and a scientific calculator sounds like a much better deal. Students need to plan time and the palm could do this as well as be a calculator. Not to mention you can beam programs back and forth with the IR port. A pda is like a calculator on steriods. Its really a mini computer. The only difference is you have virtual buttons on the screen rather then physical ones. Graphing is slow as hell on my TI-85 and I fear IT may harm innovation if they dominate. I do not want TI to dominate the whole calculator market.
Good idea, but there are two problems (Score:3, Insightful)
2.)Speed. Maybe it's just me, but I find I can enter numbers a lot faster on my TI-83+ than I can on my Revo Plus, which has a keyboard, stylus, and a variety of graphics calculator apps which really blow the 83+ out of the water.
Hear hear, snap-on keyboard.. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the things I wanted to do when my HP48G dies (which might be never) or when I find a broken HP calculator is to figure out how to build a snap on, or maybe a wireless linked, keyboard to the Palm platform. I know it's possible, it just might need a little PIC chip doing the translations. That calculator was always with me through my EE degree, and we used to joke that the engineering jackets used to have oversized inside pockets to store them perfectly.
A palm with the HP keys would be the ultimate. The tactile feedback on the 48GX is incredible and allowed me to "know" I did a calculation right, whereas the other ones and later models TI lacked that positive "thunk" feel.
Anyone wanna send me a busted HP? :)
Re:I wonder if a palm would be a good replacement (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought about trying to emulate the 11C/12C on the Palm, but the 11 keyboard is too large to fit on the screen, without even thinking about the fact that the keys each have three functions on them.
The holistic experience of using one of these fine calculators is just not easy to achieve on a Palm.
I don't care about graphing or solving equations or matrices or playing Quake on my calculator, I just want something with all the mathematical functions I need, plus RPN, that doesn't make me curse. The mid-range HPs are great for me.
Re:I wonder if a palm would be a good replacement (Score:3, Informative)
There is a comparison page on geekazoid about various Palm calculators, RPN and otherwise. [geekazoid.com]
It should be a good indication of the excellent design and utilty of the HP calculators that it has been so imitated... Of course, some of that has to do with the sturdy hardware- it is quite remarkable what can be done to an HP calc and still have it work perfectly...
this is _sad_ news. (Score:2)
Goddamn.
What of the software in those calculators? (Score:5, Interesting)
Somebody already asked about a Palm Pilot being a suitable replacement (er, successor). There are certainly scientific calculator apps for Palm Pilots and similar devices, and there are already hp calculator emulators in various states of functionality for various platforms.
I wonder what HP is going to do with the many years of development that went into the roms and downloadable software that we've all come to know and love. Would Bruce Perens be able to swing an open source release so that the hp calcs can live on? And if that were to happen, what would be the best way to make use of such software? Would a Palm Pilot with perhaps a native port of a 49G rom be feasible? A strongarm port? A transmeta-based super-calc?
By the way, I still have my 28s somewhere, my 48GX was stolen, and I have a 49G right here next to my keyboard. At least I'll have it to show to my grandkids, or something like that.
rpn on ti89 (Score:3, Interesting)
However, to my original point, the TI 89, (which the HP 49 was built to compete with) uses RPN internally. Every time you evaluate an expression on the TI 89 command line it is run through a parser that tokenizes it into RPN statements that end up on the expressions stack. It would be very easy to write an assembly program to provide an interface similar to the visual representation of the stack present on the 48/49. It would be even easier to write such a program using tigcc. In fact, to do symbolic manipulation using tigcc you have to feed all the data into the expressions stack then process it in RPN. The fact that the TI89 uses flash technology means you could add this functionality permanently to the calculator's featurelist. This would be a fun program to write if someone wanted to give it a shot, and all you'd really be doing is taking out the middleman.
HP and my 11c (Score:3, Informative)
I've been using my 11c since around 1987 (I actually got a second one in 1989, but it croaked about two years ago). It's been my favorite calculator since I got it. I've owned lots of calculators, including a casio 8700g, a TI-89, and my current HP48-gx. They're all fine, but I use my 11c more than anything else (I can do almost everything faster with it). Without any text entry/dispaly, it can do most everything I require on a daily basis; it can be programmed (203 steps, 4-level subroutine depth) to do more complex tasks, has more storage than I normally need (21 locations). It doesn't look fancy (no LCD matrix), so it could fool any of my math teachers into thinking it was an 'ordinary' calculator (now remember this was '87, and it had already been out for 6 years). It is by far and away the most useful single (i.e. never replaced) piece of electronics that I use on a daily basis. HP you have served me well, and will be missed (from the calculator business). I don't know what I will do when this HP-11 dies. Maybe I should keep a lookout on ebay.
A great resource on older HP calculators can be found at: http://www.hpmuseum.org
This article may be misleading (Score:5, Informative)
HP is not ceasing the production of calculators. Instead, HP has shut down the department that develops new calculators.
This is nothing unusual. In the mid-1990's, HP already effectively shut down calculator development for several years.
The manufacture of calculators is completely separate from the development, and production will continue.
They had to wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
hang on a minute... (Score:3, Informative)
IIRC, the HP-41 was developed at a facility in Oregon. Did they move the whole group to Australia?
Anyone from HP available to comment, please?
-jcr
Quick... which one do I buy? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention the fact that I'm not even sure where to buy an HP calculator. The few places I've looked just have Casio's and TI's. Didn't Wal-Mart used to sell some HP's at least?
Re:Quick... which one do I buy? (Score:3, Informative)
48GX - IR and a card slots (to add memory, or buy cards with things such as chemistry, etc.)
48G+ - Same as GX, but cheaper but no card slot. Best bet for just about anybody since it's only $83.
Check out this online reseller [wholesaleproducts.com]. It's the cheapest I've found when I briefly looked around. It's where I bought my HPGX 4 years ago for $213. It's amazing how prices have gone down.
Re:Quick... which one do I buy? (Score:3, Informative)
HP-41CV Rules (Score:3, Informative)
Recently, I needed to buy a calculator for my daughter. The school specified a certain TI model. So I bought her a Hewlett-Packard calculator. I refuse to let the school dictate what companies I will do business with. Besides, TI calculators are junk.
Use of Fancy Calculators Declining? (Score:3, Interesting)
I still own 2 programmable calculators myself and use them with some regularity, but it must be more than 10 years since I last programmed a programmable calculator. It seems to me that by the time I would bother to write a calculator program for a task, I'm sufficiently out of the spontaneous use space of calculators that I might just as well sit down at a real computer and use a spreadsheet or perl or C for the job.
Is there anybody here who really writes and/or uses programs for programmable calculators on a daily basis?
Linux on an HP calculator (Score:3, Funny)
MyCalc%> mv file1 file2
error: argument missing
MyCalc%> file1 file2 mv
MyCalc%> cat
cut: error: argument "|" is invalid
(I was going to re-write that in RPN, but I can't even figure out how pipelining would work--so forget it)
Love my 48GX, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
I have to say, though, that the HP49 is some kind of utter nightmare. It's as if HP turned its back on all of the good things that evolved over the years and decided that Texas Instruments was the holy grail or something. While the calculator is quite powerful, I find that it's useability is just horrendous and the calculator is actually slower than both the HP49GX and the TI92Plus. In fact, nobody that I know in academia or in engineering gives the 49 a passing glance.
Nonetheless, everyone is entitled to a mistake, I guess. On the other hand, HP has made a significant marketing mistake by not grabbing the hearts and minds of students. Texas Instruments is the king in that regard, if only because of their academic program that gives teachers calculators free of charge based on the number of TI calculators that their students use.
Amazingly, Hewlett Packard has the single largest corporate site in their organization here in Boise, Idaho, yet you'll find that the dominant calculator in use (by far) at the local university is the TI. Why? Because TI gives calculators to the faculty free of charge if their students use enough of them. What is the dominant brand of calculator in the university's bookstore? Yep, TI. And this is from a university that has the 7th best public engineering program in the nation. And is just 10 miles from a huge HP campus. Go figure.
Still, I'll be sad to see them go. But I wouldn't blame Fiorina for the loss...I think it's been a long time coming.
-h-
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
I have owned both HP and TI calculators. I have several of each. And I can say, without reservation, that the HP calculators are of the highest quality and last for decades. The TI keypads are doubling up numbers and missing keystrokes in a fraction of that time. This is a sad day when we have to choose between Sharp, TI, and Casio as our big-name calculators.
You remind me of someone saying "I'm glad Ferrari is going out of business. Chevy for life!"
Parent
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:2, Insightful)
I am extremely satisfied with my TI-89. Note, however, that I have not used, extensively, an HP calculator. I've heard great things about them, but you know what: MY 89 IS FINE. It gets the job done, and quite well, if you ask me. I've never had a problem with it (aside from the "feet" falling off), and I am impressed by the enormous number of functions that come built into the OS.
I really should not have said what I said above, as I am sure HP calculators are great, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the TI line. My friends use them, and I use them. They work wonders for us.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:2, Informative)
There is a lot of history related to HP calculators. HP introduced the scientific calculator to the world with the HP-35. That was 1972 and it came with rechargeable batteries rather than the crappy little 9 volt battery clip. The HP-41 was standard equipment on the space shuttle. They have really revolutionized the industry and it's indeed a sad day to see them close down the shop.
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)
I really should not say anything bad about Unix, as I am sure Unix machines are great, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with the Windows line. My friends use them, and I use them. They work wonders for us.
Also, I would like to tell you how extremely satisfied I am with my McDonald's hamburger. Note, however, that I have not eaten, often, steak...
Parent
between sharp, TI, and casio (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:3, Interesting)
It might surprise many people to know that HP's most recent calculator offering, the HP49G, uses a 4 MHz Saturn processor. This is a 4-bit (yes, 4-bit) processor that was originally introduced (at a blazing 0.64 MHz) to support the HP71B calculator in 1984.
A friend of mine showed me his HP28C calculator in 1987. This was the first of the HP calculators to support symbolic manipulation of expressions; I remember being impressed not only at the power of the calculator but the careful thought that had gone into its design of its user interface. I didn't learn until much later that this was all being done using a processor that was underpowered even by the standards of the day.
It turned out that a lot of the power was due to the work of a team assembled by Bill Wickes, then a physics professor at the University of Maryland. He'd purchased an earlier calculator, the HP41C, and had discovered a bug that allowed him access to the calculator's machine code. It didn't take long for folks to become conversant in this "synthetic programming," which allowed people to do things with the HP41C that the calculator's designers never intended.
HP was first and foremost an engineering organization at that point, so they hired him (the fact that the DMCA didn't yet exist also prevented them from suing him into oblivion) to design the next generation of calculators, which included the HP28C, HP28S, and the HP48 series. Development stopped in the mid 1990s for a while, but the current Australia-based group led by Jean-Yves Avenard and Gerald Squelart have continued to develop miraculously functional software for surprisingly limited hardware.
The capabilities of modern hardware have advanced so quickly that it's much easier to miss the beauty of small, quick, functional code. It's easier to write big, bloated code--and let the hardware make up for the resulting inefficiency.
Now I run into occasions where the user interface for the operating system (never mind the underlying application) on a Pocket PC that's based on a 206 MHz StrongARM 32-bit processor. While I wouldn't want to roll back the clock on hardware performance, I hope that the art of writing fast, lean code doesn't become an unintended victim of progress.
Re:There are no equals... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:= key same as enter (Score:3, Informative)
Try (5 + 3) * (6 + 1).
TI: 5 + 3 = * ( 6 + 1 ) =
HP: 5 E 3 + 6 E 1 + *
Assuming my TI keystrokes are correct (I haven't
used one for 20 years), that's two less keystrokes
for this simple example.
Re:Its worth noting... (Score:3, Informative)
With RPN you will never have to use bracketed notation. The stack can very easily take care of all of that. You simply work across the rows of fractions and functions, nomatter how complex of bracketed it might be to write down. This is the beauty of RPN.
It just happen that it maps across to hardware and a stack much easier than any other system and that's why HP orignally went with RPN.
Re:Waitaminnit... (Score:3, Informative)
HP is going to hell in a handbasket. They have sold or spun off all of the divisions that made HP's reputation in the first place.