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Returned from Allschwil ... - Printable Version +- HP Forums (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum) +-- Forum: HP Museum Forums (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum/forum-1.html) +--- Forum: Old HP Forum Archives (https://archived.hpcalc.org/museumforum/forum-2.html) +--- Thread: Returned from Allschwil ... (/thread-143058.html) |
Returned from Allschwil ... - Walter B - 11-02-2008 ... this night at 1:15 a.m. Since it was my very first Allschwil Meeting, I'll give you my impressions. Short summary for the busy reader: Nearly 20 hardcore HP fans gathered, exchanging ideas and showing some *very* promising developments. For those of you having a bit more time: For me, it all started on Friday night at 11 p.m. meeting Matthias, Meindert, Geir, and Diego for a short warm-up in the Hotel Schlüssel until the place closed the restaurant at midnight. Next late morning we met again at Matthias' and Eva's brand new home, and more people flew in, bringing suitcases with interesting stuff and lots of European good food with them (IMO M & E will not need the Coop or Migros for some days ;) We all got the chance to visit M's collection extensively. For those of you who haven't seen it yet, it's worth a detour (-> Michelin) for sure! I mean some people tell me crazy because I collect calculators, having a modest set of some 40 electronic devices -- but M's collection room beats all I can imagine. It contains some special mechanical calculators as well as the most complete set of HP-calc (!) related (!) stuff (!) possible on this planet. Take the chance to see it, else you won't believe it. BTW, when you are there, take a look to the old village center of Allschwil as well, it would be a pity to miss it. Shortly after noon the whole flock moved to M's school and held the meeting in his classroom. For me as a lover of Helvetica this place offered quite some nice observations, too, but the main part, of course, were the presentations of the participants. A lot of bits and pieces, circuit and timing diagrams, interface protocols, and other tech details for the HW- and SW-engineers. It even included an outdoor presentation of an 41C-based surveying application. Summing up, IMHO the most interesting presentation covered the PIL-box, which was a topic in this forum recently, too. This could become a *very* useful box for many of us. Jean-Francois seemed to be a bit surprised about the interest created (or he's just a humble guy), but there were considerations on the spot to get this thing produced in quantities of some hundreds (kind of mass production for this community ;) It all took the time till the evening easily. Though there was plenty of energy refilled during the meeting, Matthias had reserved a place at a very nice restaurant nearby, where the closing dinner took place. This also gave us the chance for two short walks, helping to distribute the Joules a bit. The first participants left shortly afterwards, many continued discussions at M's home again, some stayed in the area for another night. Finally, I'd like to thank all fellow participants for sharing ideas, and special thanks to Matthias and Eva for their hospitality. Not everybody would let such a crowd in his/her new home. Anyway, I'm looking forward to Allschwil 2009, hoping for something useful having grown then out of the ideas seen now -- and maybe even a new HP calculator for the Sci-Tech community. Ceterum censeo: HP, launch a 43s. Walter P.S.: Thanks, George B., for missing me. I hope you got around alone for the day. At least you know where to look for good design ;) Edited to modify a specification.
Edited: 2 Nov 2008, 6:43 a.m. after one or more responses were posted
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Reth - 11-02-2008 Thanks for that, Walter! Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Paul Dale - 11-02-2008 Sigh, I only wish I lived within twenty hours of such a gathering...
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - George Bailey (Bedford Falls) - 11-02-2008 Walter,
interesting to read. But are you sure your swiss host wants all the world to know about his collection? Any thief might be pleased to get free information...
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Walter B - 11-02-2008 George,
anybody posting unprotected information on the www knows this information is PUBLIC (if (s)he doesn't know, it's too late anyway). Matthias has his own home page here. Think! Any further questions? Don't hesitate to ask, I'll do what I can ;)
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - George Bailey (Bedford Falls) - 11-02-2008 Quote:
Didn't know that. Then it should be ok for you to reveal what you've seen on your secret mission for MI5...
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Juergen Keller - 11-02-2008 I joined the Allwschil meeting the first time, too, and I can fully share Walter's impression: It was simply amazing! I didn't see that many 41CY in one place before :-) Meindert's improved MLDL 2000 prototype, JF's PIL Box prototype, Diego's new ideas, Peter's and Christoph G.'s and Andreas' programming wizardry, Christoph K.' new and very comprehensive 41 book, Walter's sophisticated keyboard layout and display design studies, Matthias' outstanding collection, the many interesting discussions, all the friendly people from different places (Norway, NYC, Canaries, France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland), contributed to an unforgettable day. One of my personal highlights was Rainer's demonstration of his theodolit, which uses a 41CY (together with a 9114 floppy drive and a thinkjet printer) as a data logging and processing unit. He still uses this equipment in his work as surveyor. He said that the 41CY runs fine up to -15 degrees Celsius! Many thanks to the meeting hosts and all the people who made this day a complete success! Hope to see you all next year.
Juergen
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Patrick Rendulic - 11-02-2008 Hello, thanks for the information!
A shame that I did not come to the meeting, it would have been 4 hours by car ...
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Mark Edmonds - 11-02-2008 What's a 41CY please? I'm guessing it is the 41 with the blank keys but I've never seen 41CY referenced before. Thanks...
Mark
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Juergen Keller - 11-02-2008 A HP-41CY is an HP-41CX with internal RAMBOX and 2x Turbo-Mode (turned on and off by a red switch on the side of the calc). This modification was done by the German company W&W. It's kind of a holy grail for 41 fans. Today it is rare and hard to find. See Matthias web site, e.g., http://hp-collection.org/calculators.html.
HIH, Juergen
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Mark Edmonds - 11-02-2008 Thanks Juergen. Is the entire 64K directly addressable? Could you write a 64K program with it?
Mark
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Pascal - 11-02-2008 Many thanks to Matthias and his wife for their hospitality, although I live in Switzerland it was my first Allschwil meeting and I really enjoyed it. I also took some picture of Mathias' collection to prove to my wife that I'm not the only crazy guy who collects old calculators and that some of them are even crazier than me ...
What struck me was all that enthusiasm and the fact that people are still developping new hardware & software for platforms that are sometimes almost 30 years old (hp-41) !
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Geir Isene - 11-02-2008 Thanks to all those who participated in this event. The times are few and far between when I can share my passion with a bunch of like-minded geeks without generating blank stares, shaking of heads, looks of pity or embarrassed giggling. I am a big fan of Diego's creations, so I was pleased to finally meet him. Also, the PIL-box gave me great hopes for one of my projects; To have an HP-41 as a back-end to a web page where some important numbers (doesn't matter what numbers, really :-) are fed to the web page in real time and where the users can query the 41 via a web form. An idea for its 30th birthday next year. Also, Meindert's creation with an MLDL w/SD card will be a future catch for me. Matthias' collection is indeed a sight to behold.
For those who were there, see you next time. For those who weren't, see you, too.
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Reth - 11-02-2008
Quote:Sounds very interesting. Can you or someone else shed some light on that as pictures, programs used, availability, hardware etc.? I remember Kern had HP-41CV interface for their instruments back then, is that something similar? Thanks, Reth Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Walter B - 11-02-2008 Reth,
it was on a Kern instrument.
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Reth - 11-02-2008 Thanks, Walter, I'm not gonna ask if it was DKM-2A (the best optico-mechanical theodolite in it's class IMO) or E1/E2 quite bulky electronic ones, let someone else (Rainer?) tell us that. Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Juergen Keller - 11-02-2008 Here are two pictures. The wooden box contains the disk drive and the printer. On top of the box, there is the manual. Matthias took many more pictures, I'm sure he will publish some of them on his web site in the next days.
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Reth - 11-02-2008 Thanks a lot, Juergen! I was close ;) Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Christoph Giesselink - 11-02-2008 TNX to Matthias for his organization and to all attendees of this meeting. I was glad to meet so many people personally. Following the concept script of my demonstration. Cheers Christoph
Quote: Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Matthias Wehrli - 11-03-2008 As I got very busy today I do not have time to write a long post, I'm sorry. For the forum: here is a picture of all attenders:
Juergen Keller (CH),
Lower row from left to right:
Thomas Klemm (CH),
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - PeterP - 11-03-2008 All I can say is that it was most definitely worth the trip, even though it was a bit crazy to fly from NY to Allschwil for 2 days. First and foremost, Matthias and his wife were most gracious hosts to the whole lot of us and then in particular to me. Second, meeting all the great geniuses behind the recent as well as long ago developments of the 41/71 in particular was a most special event and treat for me. As many before have said already, it felt good to be among so many people that share a similar passion and bring their creativity to bear. I'm definitely a late comer to this party and a much larger consumer than contributor and hence very thankful to the generosity of the community to help others along. Last but not least, it was a very special treat to see Matthias' collection. And I was not only impressed by the vast amount of HP calculators and related articles, that was almost expected. What I did not expect was the meticulous organisation and presentation of his collection. Everything has its place and is kept in a save but also easy to view and enjoy way. And yes, there is always one more prototype or 'I think there are only two known pieces' that he pulls out and shares. Thanks again and I really do hope to see many of you again. Cheers Peter
Re: Returned from Allschwil ... - Matthias Wehrli - 11-07-2008 Finally the pictures from the meeting in Allschwil are online. You can download the full package of 56 pictures here:
MatthiasAllschwil Meeting 2008
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