HPCC 2020: HP's Worst Calculators (Gene Wright and Włodek Mier-Jędrzejowicz)
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- čas přidán 15. 07. 2024
- HPCC Handheld Conference 2020, October 10, 2020: Gene Wright and Włodek Mier-Jędrzejowicz presents "HP's Worst Calculators".
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In my opinion the HP-35s is the best non-graphing calculator from hp in 2020
You had me on the edge of my seat fearful that I possessed one of the HP stinkers! I did; the HP 49G! OMG I looked in horror at my dog Boo and he looked at me with alarm when I declared:"It's got to go Boo!" Unfortunately my mutt is not very clued up on English pronouns and began to howl with dread and alarm thinking I meant HE had to go! Boo fled to the ablutions room like a gazelle and it took me over two hours and a promise of three lamb chops to coax him out. The trauma, alas, has deprived him of his natual ability to bark! Loved your video! Best wishes.
Totally disagree, because the HP 49G learnt me as a teenager to develop in assembler, made me discovered a great community... and helped me to get my baccalaureate thanks to its function studies possibilities :)
This machine has been a great entry point to my life of engineer! At least, I can’t go against that vote, but I would thank all the development team (that was based in Australia, if I’m not wrong) for having created that calculator.
learnt? you mean taught, as an engineer you should learn english properly.
@@noth606
In my career, I have seen so much good and efficient engineers, speaking a broken English, that I wouldn't count on your advice...
@@newic500 Engineers who didn't need to communicate as part of their job? Part of my job is to run and direct a team from India who speak terrible 'english' to the point that no one wants to try to decipher it, I know them all personally and can deal with it but it takes hours out of each week to do. So yes engineers should learn proper English.
@@noth606 i spent a lot of time with Korean, Chinese and Japanese… Fuck yeah, how they were good and efficient, but their English were sometimes so so :) Foreign engineers aren’t made to receive orders from an English spoken guy… The Colonial time is over ;) Many countries manage their engineering by themselves
@@newic500 I'm from Finland, but I speak english because I'm not stupid and work with people from all over the world. colonialism has absolutely nothing to do with anything since a long time, english has however become the default standard language internationally, like it or not.
The 49G is my favourite. It was the first I got and I really liked the blue color.
The software was very good sure (after ROM updates). But, if you ever had in your hand a 48 or even a 50 you can feel how bad are 49G's: color scheme (it first apears nice when you come from TI or Casio toys), rubber keys (not as confortable as we are used and the printing goes with time), large screen (compare to 48) but lesser quality and readability, some other few issues.
The HP-55 came out in 1975, not 1973. I bought one in the spring of 1976, while a senior in high school, because it had linear regression, a timer, and a few other functions that the more recent HP-25 did not have (the HP-25C was not out yet). The HP-55 also had a more professional and robust feel to it. It was no doubt a commercial failure for HP, especially compared to the far more popular HP-25/HP-25C, but it was a much better machine for its era than any of the others presented here.
At the same time (actually on the same order through the same remote vendor, a camera store in NYC), a friend bought an HP-25 because it was better for programming. We were the first two people (counting both students and teachers) at our high school to have programmable calculators. We are still waiting for the statue to be erected. :-)
The HP-55 was a better calculator for me for finishing high school and doing the first three years of my civil engineering degree (I bought an HP-34C for my last year in college). The HP-25 was a better calculator for my friend for finishing high school and going to the US Naval Academy to study Systems Engineering. This is because our use cases were different. I needed what the HP-25 was missing and he needed a better programming space.
BTW, after a career of serving as the nuclear engineer on LA-class submarines, then work in the private nuclear industry, my friend completed a PhD in Computer science and taught at the Naval Academy and another university. I still have my HP-55, although I don't use it any more. My friend lost his HP-25 years ago, but by then everything he was doing was on a computer.
Table leveling is only covered in the 8S Advanced User Reference :)
HP-28C was groundbreaking in 1986. It was a huge step up from my HP-97 & HP-15C.
The HP-28S ( 32K & 1MHz upgrade ) that came 2 years later made me feel that I wasted my money on the early-bird.
( At least I could use the IR Printer again when I purchased the 48GX in 1992. )
When the HP-35S came out in 2007 I was thrilled with the old-school format and the Voyager-style keys.
But offering only a 2 line display, in a world craving graphic calculators or at least a bigger visible "stack", I felt very dissappointed.
Theese days HP doesn't make any professional calculators at all! ( I don't consider the HP Prime a "calculator" ).
The best "HP" calculator is probably the SwissMicros DM42 and the "best buy" the HP-30B with WP-34S firmware. :D
The 28C was the one that got me to love RPL. Being able to see the stack and to see the numbers coming at me made all the difference. The 2K memory was constraining, and I felt almost betrayed when the 28S came out and was so much better.
Any and all of the Spice series, in which they tried not soldering in the components. I went through three returns before the 15c came out, and I bought one of those. That one I still have.
The HP-35s should not even have made the 'dishonourable mention'-list. It is a magnificent, hard-working, robust, highly capable little machine. It might have quirks and [ahem] unique features, but certainly not defects nor deficiencies.
I agree. Despite its irritations it is worth getting.
I passed my FE, PE, and ham radio extra exams with that little guy, so lots of respect for this one. Using a DM-42 now but the 35s was a great RPN exam-allowed calc with imaginary support.
I get that it doesn’t hold up to the “classics” but it’s what we had when I got there and it did what it was supposed to do.
I loved my 48SX but it suffered from the keyboard separation and didn't survive my attempt to disassemble it - I did not know about the repairability-hostile design at the time. I later received a 50G as a father's day gift, never experiencing the keys of the 49 series, and although I now appreciate the keys and higher contrast display, on the 50G the key layout deserves the hatred it received. I don't know if someone at HP was trying to mimic TI or Kinpo was just following what they do for TI but it was a awful. The Prime fixes the layout but then returns to awful keys, a horrid color scheme, and a completely broken RPN implementation. Given their abysmal printer division, I'm going to quote David Bowie in saying they're dead, they just ain't buried yet.
Yeah, I have a 49G. It also frequently suffers with memory issues that corrupt the display where you have to restart it. Absolutely terrible all-around.
Bring back the 41 and it's plug in modules!
I’ve been the owner of -25C, -33E, -12C, -28C, and -48SX; always appreciated the keys, HP’s trademark.
And now we have the HP15 CE which is just so much better then the LE.
Unfair to put the 28C (and therefore 28S) into this category. Yes, battery hatch and keyboard failures on many after 10-20 years but I have a well kept one (28S), works well, and the keyboard is better than the 41 series. It is my favourite! And recall, RPL in 1986 must have been amazing!
28C was very frustrating. Expensive, so much promises, so much expectations and so little memory ! A shame. The 28S was the real 28 I loved.
Apart from the battery hatch the 28C is not comparable to the 28S at all!
( I have had 10 different HP's since my first "HP-97" including the HP-28C. My favorit is still the 48GX. )
I think what really got the 28C on the list is the frustrating 2K RAM limitation, which the 28S was not hobbled by. My first HP was a 28S and I thought it was miraculous but I remember hearing about the 28C and wondering why on Earth they'd have designed such a machine and given it only 2K. (Later I learned the story: the hardware specs were exactly those of the 18C Business Consultant, which was the model higher-level management knew was commercially viable.)
The 15C LE belongs on this list for the reason mentioned: it killed any further "remakes". The 6S is the only HP calculator I bought and then gave away.
Funny how fate got us the CE anyhow... and thank goodness for that!
I was so glad to be wrong! It's a testament to the original 15C that the LE problems did not kill demand for a remake. We also got lucky that HP decided to license their calculators so that people who cared could carry on the legacy.
a fridge magnet calculator? get real! I don't have a fridge near my desk.
My brother had a 48 SX, I got a 49g.... I was amazed at how much of a downgrade it felt like with its plastic TI rip-off cover, it ultimately suffered a battery leak at one point and had many of its keys simply became unfunctional making the calc useless, hard to believe HP was trying to bill this as the successor to the 48 line.
I operated an 9825 desktop calc. It was extremely good. Would love to buy one. I know where there may be one !
I'm surprised that HP would ever consider making anything like what you've shown.
The hp28 had unusual hard keys ? I never fancied possessing one, but I don't think keys could be harder to press than the ones of my 33c and 34c. They are definitely three times harder to press than any of my other hp's.
The worst one that I got was the HP-10BII. I have the HP-17bII+ (gold painted display bezel) and it still works. I get a used HP-17bII+ Silver (case similar to the HP-35s) from eBay and I like it. It was a good design though, as keys are working fine.
The HP-10s+ is the worst HP calculator I got. I really like the HP-10bII+ (despise it's algebraic only)! HP should have made the HP-10s+ in the same way as the HP-10bII+! ;)
I agree with all nominations, but not with the 28C. This machine was a phenomenal disruption from prior machines. Sure, 2k was ridiculour for a machine with this power, but hey, they corrected that in the 28S. Give it credit gentlemen!
I re-watched this and have to say I disagree with the 39G being on the list. Without the 39G I would not have cheap but superior parts to repair 48 series calculators. They practically give these things away on eBay and the LCD in the 39G is a perfect upgrade for the fuzzy blue display in the 48 series.
What about the HP-300s+?
The 28C would return an error midway in the process of graphing 1/x
The 49g+ and the 35s......sadly I have them both....
I don't agree with the 39GII being bad. I own one and it's a good calculator, it's durable (as opposed to some other models), the features are great, it was cheap enough for what it provided, it's still relevant today, the keyboard was decent (not very good, but decent), the display would have been great (resolution, grayscale levels) if it did not have this pretty poor viewing angle... (so, a bad-ish point here). I understand that, being a 100% algebraic calc, it's probably seen as the devil by HP calcs afficionados (and I've owned a HP28S and a HP48G+...), but as far as being a dead-end, no, it's a direct predecessor of the HP Prime, introducing the same programming language, many of the base functions, and even the general look (although for sure the Prime looks a lot more premium.)
So, just a thought. Maybe an oddball somewhat in terms of being "HP", but still a good calc that deserved better than it got IMHO.
HP-48sx
#10 HP-6S / 6S Solar
#7 HP8S and 10S
#6 HP28C
#5 HP-55
#4 HP-4C LE
#3 HP-12C Platinium (1st edition)
# Quick Calc
# HP-49g
Considering the contributors, I was expecting more than this rather trivial rating of a bizarre lot of HP calculators. I mean, how can you compare cheap little things like the 10s with HP's mainstream calculators? I agree that the 49G is awful, because of the display and the keys that are not only rubber but hard to press (unlike the 39G). But dismissing the 28C and 55 and ignoring dreadful marketing mistakes like the 33S seems very quirky. Disappointing.
49g I have one. It’s unusable in my opinion.
HP 25 by far
I nominate the HP Prime, the white keys and the silver keypad area are just awful. It could have been so much better.
Hello. I had the same top1 in mind and I happily discovered that we have the same worst hp. But on my side, it's for another reason. In fact , the same reason as the 15c limited because they are thr end of the dream. I dreamed of the 28s and of the 48sx. I finally bought a 48sx to a friend of mine who bought the 48gx. A few years after I bought the 48gx waiting for a new model. Waited in fact 7 years... for the same model but simplified. It adds nothing. It is loaded with the meta-kernel and you loose the equations and the table of elements. We lost the expandability. And at that time I realized that the HP dream was over, and the adventure of the calculator was over. More than 20 years later, I can confirm that I was right. The last hp machine was the 48gx, I mean the last one ahead of its time.
I think hp's worst calculator was hp 49g+.
In my country at engineering faculties only there was hp calculator. After hp 49g+ , only Texas Instruments ( Ti 89 titanium).
I think I voted for the 49G for the worst. My personal worst would be the 49g+ due it's horrible keyboard.
My problem with the hp49g+ is that the gold paints on the case was destroyed by sweat from my hands and looked terrible. This was largely fixed on the HP50g. I've had two hp49g+'s and worn out two keyboards. I also have an HP50g. I really like using the SD cards. I built an elaborate directory system on them.
The HP49G emulator, go49g, runs much better than the original HP49G and has a much more pleasant shade of blue. It also has an option to use the colors of the HP50g. This app also clones easily with App Cloner. I made some twelve clones of it. This is a paid app so I can't share it.
It's power point is actually is making SRPL programs with the Emacs - extable - Nosy package. The entire ROM straight Saturn whereas the hp49g+/50g ROM is partly Arm and this part cannot be effectively decompiled. Much of your SRPL programming is done by modifying decompiled ROM code modifying it and recompiling it - something I'm quite into. There are more usable routines for the true HP49G ROM.
It is possible to create an HP49G emulator with Emu48 but it uses ROM 2.10 for an hp49g+/50g. It's also the ugly shade of blue. Emu48 is free while go49g costs $15.00 and needs android 9 or lower.
The inclusion of the HP35S is a mistake, based only on rants from old farts in some internet forum, people who actually do not possess this calculator.
People should not follow blindly a random HP-Anon who says that "checksum is meaningless" (it works perfectly indeed) or "3*3 solve looks strange" (whatever it means). If you have a 35S try yourself!
After checking that the first 3 listed bugs may not be reproduced in my HP35S I stopped checking further. It is not worth.