No mention whatsoever of HP? I graduated high school with a bunch of kids who had 48's, and that was only a few years after they came out. It was fun to watch teachers try to figure them out (except for a math teacher with the masters in CS - he used a 16C of course.) Also, Sharp and Casio make relatively popular graphing calculators. Casio has had a color graphing model for several years now. I think calculators are like remote controls. You can make them lighter and somewhat smaller, maybe add some nifty features, but ultimately they need to be a certain size, have a certain layout, and perform some basic functions to be usable. Besides, if you want to see real technological stagnation, just look at desktop calculators. I think Sharp has been selling the same printing calculator with the same green LED readout for nearly 20 years.

On 08/24/2011 11:25 PM, William Donzelli wrote: Actually it's more a matter of "successfully identifying a low-expectation market". -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 08/24/2011 11:38 PM, TeoZ wrote: I see them in offices everywhere. Not offices of people like us, but they are everywhere. There were no less than three in the truck rental place I visited yesterday. It's pretty scary, actually. I mean, I love my HP calcs (my everyday machines are a -41CX, a -28S, and a -48SX) but honestly most of the time I just type "bc" in whatever terminal window I happen to be working in. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 08/25/2011 02:29 PM, Tony Duell wrote: Ah yes, but most of my work involves sitting at a desk in front of a computer. When I work at the bench, I always have an HP-41 handy. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Thu, 25 Aug 2011 19:29:02 +0100 (BST) ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk (Tony Duell) wrote: \begin{trol} That's the time where I pull out my Android smart phone and start the HP48 emulator App... ;-) \end{trol} p.s. That HP48 emulator for Android is no joke. p.p.s. Yes, I really use that emulator. p.p.p.s. Yes, I prefere real hardware. Therefor I have a HP48SX on my desk at home, a HP41CV on my desk at work and a HP33 in the kitchen / work shop / dark room. -- \end{Jochen} \ref{http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/}

I find a real physical keyboard (particualrly an old=style HP one :-)) to be a lot more useagble than a touchscreen in such circumstnaces. Which HP33? The real one (Spice series 33E or 33C with a red LED display) or the modern HP33S thing? FWIW, the physical cosntrruction of early HP3xE/3xC machines was odd. There was a flexible PCB rwrapped round a metal chassis plate. The top surface of this had the keyboard conctacts formed in it. The lower side had a laeary of foam betwen the metal and the flexible PCB. The ICs (normal DIL packages,40 pin processor and 8 pin memory devices) had their pins bend outwards and were fitted into a plastic frame that was clamped agained the flaxible PCB so that the IC Pins came into contact with pads on the PCB. No sodler was used. The display unit was fitted similarly. There was a ocnventional PCB with the PSU circuitry on it, this had a felxible PCB tail that was also clamped (not soldered) to to the main flexible PCB. Amazingly it works, althogh apparently it wansn't all that reliable, so later machine were built in a move conventional way with the ICs and PSU 'tail' soldrred to a normal PCB. -tony

It would be much more of a shame if it hadn't been rescued... YEs, the 'c;assic series' mpdels _without a card reader_ -- that is the 35, 45, 55, 70 and 80 cna be run safely from the PSU without a battery pack. The PSU has 2 outputs, a conmstant votlage 34.2V rail to run the logic and a constant current output to charge th NiCd battery. When the charager is not plugged in, a metal contact in the calcualtor shorts the appropraiute pins of the conenctor together to connect the battery to the logic. However, the HP65 and the hP67 (Whcih is not strictly a clasisc series machine, despite the case, it has a much later processor chip) run the card reader sense amplifier IC striaght off the battery. You cna ddamge this IC (and it's HP custom of course) if you connect the chreger to those machines without a good battery fitted. The HP67 card reader sense amplidier IC was supposed to have been redesigned otwithstand this, but I am not risking it!., And never connect an HP2xC or an HP3xC or an HP95C (but you won't have one of those!) to the chrger without a good batter fitted. You will damage ICs. Gettign back to the HP45, I assume you've found the stopwatch. I cna't rememebr the key seqeucne (it's something like RCL then 7,8,CHS all held down together, you may need to try several times). It's not very accurate becasue the master clock is based on an LC circuit. The HP55 (programmable, and with a docuemated stopwatch mode) was the only classic-seires HP calculator to use a crystla clock. The anode driver chip (which includes the clock generator) is the same in all the classics, so you can fit a crystal to the HP45 if you really want to. Be warend it's a really unusual freqeuncy. If you're tempted to try it, contact Dave Colver (treasurer at hpcc.org) and ask about schematics, etc. -tony

I know quite a few people who have HP12Cs, even thought thye have no use for (or even understnd) the financial functions. Point is, the 12C is avaialble (still), and it makes an ideal RPN 4-banger that you can replave if somebodye makes off with it. -tony

Anyone have any of these available? They were the original smoke brown plexiglas printer stands that IBM made available when the IBM pc first came out Curt

On 24 Aug 2011 at 23:58, William Donzelli wrote: Bookkeepers too. My wife has one on her desk, as well as an HP12C, which based on longevity (30 years) makes the TI-83 a fuzzy-cheeked adolescent. I own two calculators--an HP16C and a no-name solar-powered 4-banger. I manage just fine, thank you. --Chuck

inless u take precal u are not taught to do it in ur own head........... anyhow my dads got an old canon calculator hes used since the 80's been droped left out in -40 used in that temp left on dash's ect ect ect still going strong. also got some texas insturments one with pile of software and manuals should fire it up one of these days On Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 11:47 PM, TeoZ <teoz at neo.rr.com> wrote:

On 08/25/2011 12:47 AM, TeoZ wrote: Sometimes (heck, ALL the time) they just need to add up a column of numbers. A spreadsheet is pretty clumsy for that. I have a good friend who is an accountant. I've seen her do this many times, then refer back to the printed tape on occasion during the course of a job. And she's a very "high-tech" accountant, too. Those tools do still have legitimate places. Too true. -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 08/25/2011 10:01 AM, Jason McBrien wrote: ... Oh wow, that one sounds like fun! What model is it? -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On 08/25/2011 04:40 PM, Tony Duell wrote: Sounds like it's RepRap time.. Neat, a tiny portable data acquisition/data reduction/output device! -Dave -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL

On Thu, Aug 25, 2011 at 5:10 PM, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote: I have several Alps plotters (Commodore 1520, the Atari-wrapped version, and some spare mechs I got from Electronic Goldmine c. 2003). I also have a RepRap and know what it can do. It can't do this. It _can_ do gears, but 2mm is the smallest reproducible feature size (as designed) using a 0.25-0.5mm-dia extruded filament. I'd link directly to a 2003-era thread on this, but it seems the archives aren't present on classiccmp.org right now. Here's a cached version... http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:7uHbphsJdCwJ:www.class… "about 1/8" in diameter and 5/32" long with a bore of 1/20" ... so the entire gear is 3mm across. Too small to print on a RepRap or Makerbot (same technology, same resolution). I still have some broken plotters. I'm still interested in landing a handful of gears. I only hope my pens are any good. -ethan

Printing calculators are very handy for tallying expenses. -- Will