You can customize your 20b to display your name when it turns ON by doing the following:

shift mode UP UP UP (select the language) SHIFT UP.

The screen then becomes blank and you are ready to enter your name (up to 8 characters). Use the UP and down arrow to select a letter, INPUT to validate the letter and = to erase the last letter and ON to exit.

For example to enter CDB, press UP INPUT UP UP INPUT UP UP UP . Once you have entered your name, press SHIFT OFF and then ON again and your name will display.

From the July HP Solve newsletter...

July HP Solve PDF

My 20b now displays "GENE" when I turn it on.

Available characters are:

Capital A through Z and lowercase A through Z.

@?>=<;:/.-,+*)('&%$#"!

and many others including many Greek letters.

Space and divide symbol

Numerals 0 through 9

and then non-English letters.

I am not aware of any way to do anything else with these characters at the moment.

Edited: 25 June 2008, 10:50 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

You see, the HP Solve Webletter IS useful. -rjn

hello,

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Available characters are:

I am not aware of any way to do anything else with these characters at the moment.

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the characters are pretty much 100% the same than the HP50 system font7... guess why?
they are a few changes here and there (for characters that actually uses the 7 lines, and to add stuff like -1 superscript).

I would be surprised if you could do anything with these characters :-)

cyrille

Hello!

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... IS useful.

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Useful? The day I won't be able to remember my name and need to turn on the calculator to retrieve it will also be the day that I forget to take the machine with me... Anyway, my name is longer than 8 characters.

I would have found an "H.MS+" key much more useful, as the one of my good old HP 67!

Greetings, Maximilian

Edited: 26 June 2008, 8:59 a.m.

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You can customize your 20b to display your name when it turns ON by doing the following:

shift mode UP UP UP (select the language) SHIFT UP.

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I don't have a 20b so I cannot try it out.

Great ;) !

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Anyway, my name is longer than 8 characters.

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What do you mean, Max? ;-)

I am really liking the HP Solve magazine. It is about time the HP put a newsletter regarding their calcualtors again.

I see in the HP Solve newsletter it says about the 20b:

...is the first device based on the new HP calculator industrial design platform that unites style and usability to deliver visually distinct and meaningful elements across the HP calculator lineup

There's not much to unite when there's only one model in the series. I wonder what calculators are coming next in this series? This looks like a great form factor for the latter day 42s that so many would like to see.

It's hard to imagine what variations they can add in this series, considering that they just introduced the 35s and restyled 17bII+ in another style.

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This looks like a great form factor for the latter day 42s that so many would like to see.

It's hard to imagine what variations they can add in this series, considering that they just introduced the 35s and restyled 17bII+ in another style.

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can you tell me what hp calculator emulation are you running on that iphone. I saw it in the picture of the 20b next to the iphone.

Thanks.

It looks like Antonio Lagana's port of Nonpareil.

HP41