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An afterthought. I understand, given a special interest in electronics (having been a director of one of the largest computer user groups in the US) restoring, building electronic equipment for years that the lifespan of the most well constructed SS electronic device is about 20 years +/-. What this means is that folks out there currently using 12c will be needing to replace their original HP US made calcs within the next 5-10 years. What then? If HP continues to manufacture junk (construction wise) which is the direction of what most major manufacturers are doing it will open the industry up to some enterprising electronics builder that will build a very well made, perhaps better than the original, HP 12C and charge $500 for it. So what HP is trying to accomplish in keeping the market price low will ultimately cause them to go away. And we will all be stuck with very expensive calculators or will everyone just use an emulator on their PDAs? It is sad. HP was such a great company. No one came close. Poor marketing decisions in the corporate world always intrigue me. What seems to be common sense to most of us consumers gets completely sidestepped by manufacturers. How many great manufacturers of the past are still around? I don't think it is marketability. I think manufacturers want to maintain their profit margin without market testing new applications or avenues. Of course if you want to maintain the same gross margin 20 years later without adjusting price, you have to cut production costs and ultimately cheapen quality. We are in a disposable world. It has gotten worse within the last 20 years. HP either needs to wake up and realize that they may be a more niche market than every, or they are going to go right down the toilet like so many others. And then I guess we will all have disposable TI or Sharp calculators in our pocket. Sorry for my soapbox. Anyone in Los Angeles that cares to continue this discussion with me please feel free to email me. As you can tell I am passionate about quality and hate to see it go the way of cheap.

"Poor marketing decision" ? Nah. it is worse than that : HP DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO MAKE QUALITY CALCULATORS AS BEFORE.

Maybe Agilent knows how to do it - but I guess they will not.

Renato
1234

Yeah I agree!! In a very short time HP went from being the Tiffany's of the calculator world to the K-Mart blue light special. I don't think HP gets it, they're trying to compete against the cheapo calculators by letting somebody else make their calculators for them, but what HP doesn't realize is that if you're gonna sell a piece of junk, people will buy the lowest priced piece of junk so they'll go with other brands instead of HP. Talk about a marketing strategy that backfired!

Cheap construction, bad quality could apply to most things these days. Back then, personal computers used to last for 7-10 years. Now, if you get 3-4 years out of them, you've had an excellent computer.

I have a feeling Carly isn't in tune to the calculator/computer market as much as previous CEOs. Having now owned both older models (20, 48G) and new models (33S, 17BII+, 49G+) I can see why the older models garner so much value with the keyboard and relaibility. Having said that, HP hasn't gone completely down the toliet, the new ones I have are working (I use the 49G+ nearly every day--even for leisure). Maybe HP isn't as organized as they should be.

Current HP business is ink cartridges. Printers are just the media to market ink cartridges. Quality ? Just enough to keep customers buying cartridges. Can you blame them ? I don´t - they´re just earning theirs livings.

Michael Roback posted,

Quote:
I understand, given a special interest in electronics (having been a director of one of the largest computer user groups in the US) restoring, building electronic equipment for years that the lifespan of the most well constructed SS electronic device is about 20 years +/-.

This issue has been debated here in the past, without conclusive resolution. I certainly believe that the HP calc's of the '70s and '80 will last longer than 20 years, although, if I remember correctly, certain electrolytic(?) capacitors in some older models might eventually need to be replaced with modern tantalum(?) ones.

Personally, I have four working models that are 20 or more years old:

  • A 1984 fullnut 41CX that works perfectly after receiving a cleaning and partial resoldering
  • A 1980 fullnut 41C that works fairly well, but could benefit from the same service (fullnuts aren't the most reliable models)
  • A 1982 34C ("improved design") that works flawlessly but has broken battery terminals
  • A 1983 15C that still works absolutely perfectly, despite having been dropped inside a backback several times.

I also have a 1971 35 that has only a bad power switch (I hope).

I don't see why these models shouldn't work 30-40 years or more, if stored properly. At least, I hope so...

-- Karl S.


Edited: 7 July 2004, 4:07 a.m.

Quote: > I certainly believe that the HP calc's of the '70s and '80 will last longer than 20 years, although, if I remember correctly, certain electrolytic(?) capacitors in some older models might eventually need to be replaced with modern tantalum(?) ones. <end quote>

I have plenty of older electronic products and have never had a problem with the capacitors. If the electrolytic capacitors are appropriately derated, they should last indefinitely. What I mean by "derated" is that for example you use at least a 25V capacitor (not a 16V one) for a 16V application, and treat the ripple current, temperature range, and so on similarly.

I was a repair technician at TEAC in the early 1980's, and found that they had a bad habit of trying to save money on the large power supply capacitors by using ones that were too small and with inadequate voltage ratings. Those did tend to go out once in awhile. They did not have that problem with the little ones in the audio circuits.

I have a collection of about 500 calculators. Among the older HP devices in my collection which still work properly are an HP-35, two HP-80's, two HP-41C's, three HP-11C's, three HP-12C's (American made), and an HP-67. I also have an HP-35 with a bad bridge across the input terminals when the charger is removed, an HP-41CV with a display which is partially black, and two HP38C's which exhibit the intermittent display problem common to those devices. I have older TI devices which work properly as well including several SR-10's (1972 vintage), several TI-30's (1976), and four TI-59's (1978) with working card readers. I have several TI-59's with bad card readers and several old "four-bangers" where some segments of the display are missing.

The clear winners in my collection as far as quality and survivability are concerned are the devices made by Sharp. I have many from the 1970's including an EL-8 (1972). If I find a Sharp at a garage sale or a thrift store, and it hasn't been damaged by battery leakage, but still doesn't work, I am really surprised.

The clear losers in my collection are devices sold under the National Semiconductor or NOVUS name. If I find one of those and it works at all I am pleasantly surprised.

I am a reliability engineer in the aerospace electronics field. We avoid the use of aluminum electrolytic capacitors because they do have a failure with time mechanism. When not biased the dielectric tends to weaken. This can be prevented by periodically powering up the device. More seriously, the aluminum electrolytic contains moisture and will dry out in time. This is the main reason we avoid them.

The tantalum electrolytic comes in two varieties. There is a wet type which need not concern us as they would not be used in a calculator. There is a dry type which might be found in the newer calculators. The reliabilty of the dry type actually improves with use. Most of their failures will be infant mortality or occur in the first six months of use.

Best advice for any of them is to power them up once a month and keep them stored under decent conditions.