HP Forums

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please click the link. Read the entire article word for word if you like. Otherwise, read the last line of the 5th paragraph.

My read from this is: HP 11C, 15C, 32SII, 41C series, 42S are definitely coming back, plus other models based on most requests they received from consumers.

Long live HP.

http://www.hp.com/calculators/news/index.html

And I just cheched in to the site to ask if anyone had heard any news on the new scientifics that are supposed to come out later this year.

This HP article has been widely discussed months ago, and so is a lamer.
Search the forum archives for more answers to your hopes (HP33S, HP-17BII+, 49G+. etc...) .

Raymond

BTW: If more pseudos like 'John Smith' are posting here, maybe I'll use the German equivalent in the future: Peter Mustermann...

Raymond,

<<BTW: If more pseudos like 'John Smith' are posting here, maybe I'll use the German equivalent in the future: Peter Mustermann...>>

Can you perhaps elaborate on the above statement that you made? May be you can enlighten me and many of us those who are less intelligent than you are. Sometimes very intelligent people may appear as idiots when they communicate in scriptic fashion.

would some of U intelligent people tell the rest of

us boneheads whether or not the 32Sii will be sold again ?

Your link didn't work.

And if they will sell it again, why did they quit selling it?
Did they just need a little time to themselves to mess up the design, the cosmetics, and the feature-set ?

Given link on the message is not an active link. It is not just that link, this message window does not recognize any poster's link, period. So, just copy and paste that link to the address bar on your browser and hit return.

Read the article and then make comments.

We've heard it before-----don't put much faith in it. This page signed by MR. "Valdez" (I'm sure he is invented, along with the rest of the HP marketing strategy) has that disgusting neo-commie feel to it--like "we are now making huge successes on our 5 year plan......etc" (as the children are starving and the proletariat bosses (there's an oxymoron right there) are enjoying the weekend in their second homes......).

The fact remains that 2003 is the WORST year ever. Let's see, in January, HP drops the only remaining RPN calculator in its line---with absolutely no explanations. I believe this is the first and only time that HP has ever NOT had an RPN machine in its product line. SO, 2003 is NOT the best year ever!

Perhaps if HP acknowledged that it has been hectic, strange, turbulent, or something, then we could believe. But I don't believe it till I see it.

And I think we are going to see, as NH says, $4.66 KINPO junk. Just look at what they have sent so far---a buggy, inept upgrade of the 12-C.

HP-Compaq is just a pinko-neo commie capitalist pig post structuralist corporate nightmare. Don't believe anything "they" say.

Norm, can you add to this?;-)

Edited: 28 June 2003, 3:23 p.m.

Ha Ha, I love it . A non-RPN Kinpo calculator that sells for $4.66 it can be the "Feigenbaum Limited Edition".

who cares. If they come back like the 12 came back, they might as well do nothing.

I'd like to have a new 15C but only if it is as good as the original.

It looks to me as if HP had lost all knowledge and the calc developers were all gone. This business just doesn't work like most modern software projects. We call them banana software as it ripes at the customer's home...

You're dreaming. There is absolutely nothing in that page to suggest what you are proposing, and particularly no mention of specific scientific models (other than the revolting 30S).

HP no longer has the ability to manufacture the processors and other ASICs used in those early calculators. Just look at the 12CP - now based on an externally-sourced processor, with re-written software which provides less performance and more bugs. That's about all you can expect from any "re-released" line of scientific calculators from HP.

Best,

--- Les [http://www.lesbell.com.au]

I think the author wanted to say that many people may find it more polite to post with their real name,
and to read postings of people who don't hide behind their pseudonyms and spread unqualified phrases.

PM

John Smith is my real time. Why the hell he got the idea of that was not my real name?

Quote:

---

Given link on the message is not an active link. It is not just that link, this message window does not recognize any poster's link, period. So, just copy and paste that
link to the address bar on your browser and hit return.

---

As for the possibility of bringing back the old models: No matter what HP says, I'll believe it when I see it. At this point I doubt HP even knows how to make good RPN calculators, and I don't trust them to tell the truth about it in any case. HP really doesn't exist any more; it's just another company run by a bunch of money-hungry sharks that are defiling the Hewlett-Packard name.

Edited: 29 June 2003, 1:04 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

I just tried to copy & paste, it worked. You can try again. From time to time website goes down. Hope that was the reason.

Secondly, I would like to thank you for letting me know about the advanced formatting technique. I'll use that from now on.

Regarding your comments, I have no opinion one way or the other. Your argument seems just as convincing as the contrary. No one on this board seems to like the new management team. They are bunch of business hawks as I found out from their resume. Even Carly was neither engineering/science major, nor business in her undergrad. She was a student of foreign history or something. Real passionate and engineering innovators were Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard. They built the core engineering team whom I had been closely touched with since 1979. They even had Nobel Laureatte quality engineers and scientists on their payroll at that time. I suspect they still have the strong engineering team, but they are constantly pressured to get the cheap products out of the door to compete with cheap companies like TI, Casio (for calculators), Dell, Gateway (for PCs), and Epson, Lexmark (for printers). For oscilloscopes they have only one competitor, Tektronix. This is the only exception to that the Tektronix makes highest quality products just like HP, thus both products are very expensive (due to uncompromised quality).

So, I don't know whether the old calculators are coming back or not. I wish they did. I sincerely hope, they keep their promise.

John

Edited: 29 June 2003, 1:38 p.m.

everybody stay polite, I sense a war brewing in that last chat post. But we've always avoided wars on this chat board. Everybody is very thoughtful and accomodating.

After all, this is the HP Museum Chat Board, not a Wall Street chat board. If you want to try out that shiny new flamethrower you just bought at the gun shop, you guys should try some posting with the financial nutcases over at the Yahoo financial pages.

Reminds me of the Stephen King novel "Pet Sematary." They are dead; you bury them in the special cemetery out in the woods, then they come back a few nights later, but changed, and not for the good. Like the old geezer in the book says, "Sometimes Dead is Better."

Don't expect the old HPs to come back; it ain't going to happen. I hate to say it but I think the calculator, as we knew it, is dead. It was a technology solution to a particular class of problems, and now even though those problems still exist, there are other more widely marketable technologies to solve them (though not as elegantly).

Hang on to your HP collection (if you can), because it's only going to get more rare, and we haven't seen the end of the high prices on eBay.

Let's talk about the "externally-sourced processor" in HP calculators. I understand for everything that I've been reading and because what I see in the calcs I open and in the pictures that this forum brings us, that many models of HP calculators run on "externally-sourced processors". It's very common that the processor comes with a very clear NEC mark on it. Is it correct ? If so, what other manufacturers have been providing HP with micro porcessors ?

Quote:

---

...MR. "Valdez" (I'm sure he is invented...

---

Fred is quite real; he came to the London HPCC conference last September.

I stand corrected! And that is good news---at least there is in fact a real face and name behind the name and face.

I suppose I should apologize for my recalcitrant ranting--but it is too much fun!

So then, is Mr. Valdez a techical professional, or is he a pure marketing type? Or perhaps that question is unfairly stereotyping and should remain unanswered. Rather, did he come accross as being genuinely interested in development and marketing of high quality devices?

regards,

Bill

Norm,

Your response can be regarded as well advised for the board, but unnecessary because it should be well understood the civility and mutual respectfulness apriori by all posters. Any short of that will trigger anger.

I was angry at Raymond due to his disrespectful remarks quoted below:

<<BTW: If more pseudos like 'John Smith' are posting here, maybe I'll use the German equivalent in the future: Peter Mustermann...>>

I got inflammed by this kind of remarks. Whether 'John Smith' is a real name or assumed name for the board is irrelevant. Important thing should be the content. Personally, whether you are 'Norm' or 'Malcom X" I could care or less. But I deeply try to analyze and try to understand what are you trying to say. Is it your statement, analysis, thesis, monologue, or opinion regardless who you are? My response (if I have any) would be fully based on the content of your post. If I see any deviation from this I try to take corrective action immediately. If I let it go, or ignore those nonsense, it may become an accetable standard which I cannot accept. I'm an engineering faculty of a graduate school where I teach aerodynamics and advanced engineering mathematics mostly to doctoral students. I do not understand much anything deeper outside my field. My visit to this board almost rare to nil. Only time I visit here when I have problems with my 41CV and its accessories. Thus, I do not know most of the posters here except a few those who helped me in the past. In my view, they are highly professional, respectful, courteous, and most importantly, unselfish. They genuinely and generously tried to resolve my calculator's problem by providing wealth of hands-on experienced advice, lack of which I had no other recourse but trashing my equipments. So, I have nothing but good experince from this board.

Hi John,

it wasn't my intention to offend you,
so I hope you accept my excuses.

Regards,

Raymond

The processors w/NEC markings in later HP calcs (Pioneers, 48, etc. IIRC) were not *designed* by NEC; they were simply *fabbed* by NEC. HP didn't likely have a fab line that was usable (tied up by higher-profit chips or only had power-hungry processes available).

Thus, they prob handed off a netlist to NEC and said "Can you do this for this price, quantity and delivery schedule?" and NEC said "Yup."

Lots of co's do ASIC production to customer specs, esp gate array based design. Customer designs (often at high level, using Verilog or VHDL) tests, synthesizes & simulates using parameters & libraries supplied by the ASIC vendor for that process. Once it's done (perhaps with some real-world simulation via FPGA emulation too) the chips are spun. NEC for example, may have little or no idea how a Saturn CPU runs. It doesn't care, either: as long as chips pass the test vectors all is well.

Bill Wiese
San Jose, CA

The early (1970's vintage) calcs used chips made by Mostek and AMI. They were all custom designs and layouts (no gate arrays, etc.).

- Michael

H-P won't satisfy all of us, nor all of the "needs" of any of us.

The 12CP is the best indication so far of how HP's will "come back". Very real, very imperfect, with real limitations, and not quite the build quality of The Old H-P. No surpise there.

But I think we could cut 'em some slack on the bugs. The three I've heard are in the final product are: slow TVM computation, a bug with jumps in large programs, and the color used on the faceplate. The last is no doubt a marketing thing, and the first two are very understandable. (I'd ask, did any of the beta testers discover either of those in the beta test stage? Didn't H-P address other problems that were brought to their attention during beta test?) Let's see what H-P does about the problems that remain in future versions. You may remember, even The Old H-P released calculators with bugs, and even whole product lines with questionable or even downright lame aspects of design. (Clamshell battery covers and early solderless Spices . . . )

I don't think I can expect resurrection of, for example, the 15c or 42s in their original forms. But add programming memory (and I/O?), sell 'em even for something reasonable, and for my part I'll be grateful for a current source of purpose-built RPN devices.