OT: Argh--my old faithful HP16C is failing!

[Chuck Guzis]

On 12/06/2017 07:30 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:

> You are welcome glad it is going again it is the very best programmers
> calculator ever made.  Mine is just a little newer than yours and still
> going strong.  I bought mine new when taking a 370 assembler course.

I bought mine when my TI Programmer died.  I did not like that
calculator--small LED digits that did a poor job of hex displaying.  The
thing ate batteries for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For a time, I was involved in systems with long word length (60
(octal)/64 bit (hex)); when we started writing for the ETA 10, that
little calculator earned its keep--48-bit *bit* addresses, with indices
in bit, byte, halfword (32 bit) and 64-bit words.  Calculating addresses
by hand was "interesting" and the HP16C made it so much easier.

The little thing has stayed on my desk ever since.  I can't say that
I've used the programmable feature more than a couple of times.  I doubt
that many bit-banging programmers have, either.

It's a shame that HP discontinued it.


--Chuck