Calculator blog

Just returned from holidays and still no news on pricing o0n the long-awaited new products. The in-tray is filled with enquiries on one of them - guess which.

Some of the incoming email suggests some ideas for the website. Some of them have been implemented, some of them interesting and worth trying. 

One of them is intriguing and I would like to ask the readers whether is a way to go or not. It is about upgrading to higher models.

Of course, the malfunctioning units would have no room in the system. I am thinking on getting discontinued calculators in exchange for new ones (+ some money to discuss, depending on age, state and model). This would be limited to top models (one of the new coming models, the 50g and the 17bII - maybe as well for the upgraded wp34s)

What do you think? please email to jose@thecalculatorstore.com with your comments!

Horses for courses...

I was thinking this when I packed my things for the summer holiday in Minorca. I had been working hard until Friday afternoon, but I left some things pending for the summer holidays (some financial analysis and the BP for the following year)

I needed to take one or more calculators with me. As many of you, I have a significant collection of calculators, so the choice is not evident at first sight. I have most of the typical calculators in the past or current line-ups - main missing item is 65-67. I hope to fill the gap sometime in the future.

Back to the packing chores. I wanted to learn more in depth the 50g, so there went a manual and the calculator. There are a number of mathematical tools that I wanted to get confident with. The 50g is a very powerful tool for a scholar - either student or professor, but I doubt that an engineer at work uses CAS or most functions at all - despite its value for a math lover. (Does a 50g really have a place in business? Yes, but you need to customise it heavily) Anyway, one for the bag. Just the doubt about taking with me a summer or winter HP50g. Let's be serious and take the winter one.

Then I took my trusty HP15c. Normally is in my jacket pocket. This time I took it with me because I wanted to create a library of programs to add to this -yours- website. You know, you need to be prepared for the rush! But this is not a calculator I'll take with me in shorts, to the beach!

But then, there was the job I still had to do. +-/*-kind of job, with a lot of A%, %T, %, but little more. Instantaneously, I knew I wanted an HP17bII, and no other calculator. Keyboard feel would not be a factor, but screen contrast would - then I'd take the silver HP17bII+. 

I understand that this may sound like heresy. I know that most of our readers are engineers, and a calculator without all transcendent functions is a hampered machine; but when I wanted to do number crunching in the beach, this is the calculator I wanted to have by me.

Another possibility would have been the 19bII, but its bigger real estate utilisation (and its fragility when my son drops it to the floor) were some points against.

Your mileage may vary - and that's why I said "horses for courses"

We have a page about RPN: why it is a better way to use a calculator. So far it is embryonic - we need to go much further in the description. We need to have something simple enough to send to one of our friends, and attractive enough so that he gets interested in it.

I wanted to include an applet of an RPN calculator, but I have problems in storing files in this server - since is not mine. So far I have not been able to include a proper Java RPN calculator - yet.

What I have found is a nice site with emulators in several environments/operating systems - one of them as Java.

You will see that is a nice example. You can start practising with it...you'll probably want to hone your skills with it...just in case...

By the way: it is a very good tool for RPN training. Just make sure to open the window as big as you can: on the right side you will see the stack and the registers, and see the effect of what you're doing on the processor.

Of course: no liabilities accepted if the machine is not a perfect replica of HP 15c. I have not tried to program it, and just tried some examples with complex data; but did not do a full review of it.

Is it my ignorance on the subject, or do you share with me the impression that there is a lot going on on the small calculator world? We have mentioned recently 2 different HP15c clones, and the HP41CL, which was the subject of a prior blog. 

Here you have a link to the site. It is not so evident to find it from within Systemyde.com !!

systemyde.com/hp41/

and here is a link to the manual. Please read if you want to commit your old 41C to surgery!

HP41CL manual

Some of the users of this new development are showing us the beauties and virtues of the HP41CL. Geoff Quickfall has made a couple of impressive videos demonstrating the features of this development:

Here you have a display of calculator speed comparisons between the old and new hp41. The speed difference is impressive!

(If you compare the quality of these videos, they are miles ahead of what you can see elsewhere regarding calculators- Not bad at all for someone starting to record them!!)

Today I came across a very interesting project: The Kinome Voyager

It consists in a calculator of the Voyager series enhanced with hardware and memory that allows it to run the firmware of the different Voyager calculators. You can select, with a special switch on procedure, which one will you use. This was done on "normal" voyagers!

Today with the new Voyagers that run the firmware as emulation of the original firmware, in theory it should not be impossible to have several firmwares in the same calculator. You would just need to have a keyboard cover with the right lettering. something like this:

Please click on the "cc" symbol on the lower right to get access to text subtitles that illustrate what the user is doing.

An interesting feature is that each "environment" keeps its memory even when running a different calculator model. 

For more information, please read the following link in hpmuseum.org:

Kinomi Project

Read from message 33 onwards - the rest makes reference to this summer "#calculatortrendingtopic"...

If it is ever available, I will buy for sure one...I have enough calculator "donors" for frankencalc surgery...

Imagine a hypotetical calculator reissue. Imagine now that you are confronted with the following question: would you keep the calculator that everybody loves exactly "as is", or would you try to improve upon what many have considered the perfect calculator?

Picture yourself as well confronted with the fact that everybody else wants new calculators being developed (refresh the graphic family, low end and high end, etc.), and that this reissue has strong appeal only to a small group of engineers (around 100.000 units were produced in its first incarnation).

A new development to extend the features of that loved calculator (like including algebraic entry, multiplying its memory) would detract from your current development programs. The fact that the original firmware is there only in the form of a ROM, without any other documentation or support, does not help, either.

According to the information that we have, it comes as no surprise that the firmware would be exactly equal to the original model, i.e. limited to 65 registers. HP would think it's better to avoid glitches and problems using a proven solution. However, according to a source linked to emulator design, it would not be too difficult to move it up to 128 registers. More than that could be substantially more complex. But that might be our community's task (the reissue would come with the same adaptor found in the HP30b)

If you'd plan to go that way, it would be good to buy 2 calculators: one to experiment with, and the one that stays "factory" (you will not be able to keep the original firmware once flashed)

Just imagine what can be done with 128 registers! Or imagine if you can have 2 memory spaces- just like what's been done with the wp34s: you could keep 2 sets of programs according to your needs; or have one set with your programs (close to full memory used up), and one set empty, for heavy matrix utilisation. 

Comments welcomed!!

During these days, while all HP-distributing websites are scrambling to put together a couple of screens to take advanced orders for products for which they even do not have samples to test, we have decided NOT to do it until we know for sure _when_ we will be actually shipping the items.

What we know is that this is a product we've been wainting for long, and for which there is a huge number of persons that has shown interest. We do respect them, we will not tell them stories, we will keep them informed through the newsletter (for registered users) and we will do our best to satisfy them. For sure they will get a better deal than the non-registered user.

Meanwhile, there are other HP-related developments that we are not focusing on. We have talked about the wp34s - now is probably the turn of the HP41CL.

This is an extremely interesting development: taking an HP-41C calculator (of which there are more than 1 million out there, and taking into account HP's legendary reliability, a high % of them still alive), putting there a new processor that emulates the old one at much faster speeds, add in many modules, shake it and serve it cool.

Please find enclosed a post by none other than Geoff Quickfall about the calculator:

HP 41CL, thoughts...pics...

It brings me back to my 20's.

I will not subject my HP41cx to surgery - but I am looking for a 41c to be CL'ed. 

Apparently, the initial production run is over and we need to wait for further plans (Monte, please chime in if not true); but I will buy a board for myself when available, for sure!

Here is the presentation made in HHC 2010:

I have received this week information about two new products. Now we are getting more details: suggested retail price, packaging, distribution, number of units to be produced, date of distribution.

Both of them are exciting for a calculator lover - one of them beyond exciting. It will not be the "Costco" kind of product - both of them are intended to be premium items.

As well, one loved product has been discontinued - but not 100%. I will replenish my stocks, since it is one of my best sellers. There'll always be a customer for it.

Information that can be spilled:

• Premium packaging and cases
• Fully printed manual
• high price - but much less than you had imagined
• Fast !
• just English version
• CD with goodies

What - no pictures in my blog? No, this time I can't. 

I await sample units to test. All registered users (registering link on the left of the screen) will be emailed when available

HP's on a roll.

If you have seen recently our home page, or our classic calculator section, you will have found several outstanding items:

The Blue HP50g is back. We have located a secure supply of blue 50g and are able to ship them again.

An excellent HP25 - a simple programmable machine from '76, with excellent screen and very good keyboard. Battery contacts are shiny!

And, Finally, an excellent HP28s - the father of all RPL machines, with a fantastic keyboard, very easy to write alphanumerics with:

You can find them in their respective pages. Enjoy!