Check this one out:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=50577&item=7148443440&rd=1

Is this real?

EL

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After not selling at this particular seller's grossly inflated "like it or lump it" BIN price, the simulator/emulator will probably turn into a computer mouse before the auction expires.

Please follow the current
thread:

Shouldn't this guy be ejected from eBay?

It is even more interestint to see his completed listinga:

http://tinyurl.com/7pn9x

Note that he does find buyers occasionally for HP stuff.

More interesting is that he even sells an occasional "optical mouse" for 95 cents---note however that the shipping is 19.95.

Ebay explicitly forbids "excessive shipping charges" when their intent is clearly used as a fee dodge--which is clearly what is happening here.

I cannot see how he actually makses money though--he has so many dead listings--e as got to be paying fearsome amounts to cover all those insertion fees.

I

Why not buy TWO....or THREE?

I wonder how many engineers out there use the emulator? I found a 16C in Mass. some 15 years ago and pounced on it, despite having no need for it (and having an HP-UX emulator at the time). I've still got the machine and will never sell it, but I haven't had to bit-twiddle since college and even the Windows calculator program can do hex and octal.

http://www.pahhc.org/mul8r.htm

I think it is about $25 or so.

Perhaps we should all buy a copy and list it on Ebay!

>I wonder how many engineers out there use the emulator?

*raises hand* that is, if "computer nerd" counts as "engineer". i use it fairly often on my 48sx. i need the floating point operations that the 16c doesn't have, so it's a pretty good marriage.

that said, i recently picked up a 16c just for fun.

-CAM

eBay's policy is listed at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-shipping.html

As you can see, it is largely toothless.

eBay should change its policy to allow only actual shipping costs, and handling should be included in the purchase price of the item.

Hi, megarat.

I'm curious: knowing that the HP16C allows some 10-digit mantissa, two-digit exponent floating point operations (+, -, ×, ÷, square root and reciprocal), can I ask you what are the ones you need other than these? Please, understand that this is just curiosity of mine. I own an HP16C and I use it anytime I need to deal with digital design. I also use either the HP42S or any RPL-based (HP48 and/or 49), but I take the HP16C as better that these ones when memory is not an issue. I also wrote some programs that allow the HP41 to get closer to the HP16C, except for the fact it is limited to 32-bit word size. But I do not use the HP16C so often for floating point operations. That's why I'm curious: any particular field?

Please, forgive me asking about this, if there's some particular point that should not be mentioned, I'll gladly accept a non-straight answer.

cheers.

Luiz (Brazil)

I think that if everybody sent an email to eBay complaining, they would kick this loser out.

**vp

Do your worse!

I have checked with eBay and they have told me that my listings are OK since they comply with eBay rules.

Just because you do not like the way I sell my goods, it does not mean that you can "kick me out of eBay"

eBay likes me because I make money for them. Do you?

If you look at my successful sales, you will see that the buyers of my stuff are almost always happy and I make a tidy profit.

I have written quite complicated scripts to carry out the changes in the listings to protect my business from useless overpayment of fees and this effort has allowed me to be a very sucessful eBay seller. I think you guys are just envious of my highly effective sales practices.

Kisses to all

That's my boy! Come with papa... >8^)

Edited: 18 Apr 2005, 10:06 a.m.

Hi John,

Per Ebay: "A shipping and handling fee can cover the seller's reasonable costs for mailing, packaging and handling the item."

To me, this seemed to be a damper--because I thought (erroneously) that "reasonable" is something that would be normal and customary--which $20 for shipping a mouse is not.

What coburlin does is a good idea--and I am glad he can get a way with it--because now I will, too. It is obvious that the more you can put into the shipping, the less the price needs to rise in the auction--so there is less ebay profit. THat is the 1st thing I wanted to do when I learned about ebay--but the policy I have quoted stopped me.

Hi Vassils,

I am surprised by your comment. I think coburlin's prices are a bit obnoxious--and I hate having to compete with him over and over in every bid, and yet that is all part of the game. I cannot see any good or just reason that he should be summarily dischared.

The fact is, if he buys too much stuff for too high a price, the market will spank him, so there is really no reason to worry. The market will take care of itself in this case.

I wondered why he changed from burlin to coburlin?

Regards,

Bill

i don't usually use those features concurrently, but i do have frequent needs for log/exponential functions, plus the trig, factorial, and probability/stat functions. (i'm involved with computational biology, frequently programming stat/math models and simulations. i use the calculator to prototype and double-check my programming.)

i could use multiple calculators for my needs (say, my 15c and 16c), but i like some of the yummies that are uploadable to the 48sx. (plus, the 48sx is relatively cheap, so if it gets damaged going between home and work, it's less traumatic.)

-CAM

You're right Coburlin,
You are probably complying to the rules, but it doesen't mean we have to buy from you. It is a free market YES and consumers have a right to choose who to buy from, just like you have a right to charge the price you want to.
Fair is fair

But you wont find me bidding on your stuff i'm sorry.
I pity those who are so desperate to have to pay so much.
But if they do, good luck to you

Complicated to him, perhaps..

Trivial programming practices to the general hp community.

Luckily, I have enough rpn machines to fare well w/o him.

Hi, megarat;

just to thank you for your explanation. I am aware of the fact that many bit-manipulation and almost all integer-related, logic functions already available with the HP16C are also available with the HP48, plus all real-number arithmetic and symbolic manipulation. Although I like using the HP16C because it has every logic operation I need available in the keyboard, I cannot help using the HP48 for extensive number cruching operations.

Thanks again.

Luiz (Brazil)

123456 to remove

Hi, Bill

It follows that it would be not against the ebay rules and it would be "reasonable" to offer, say, a HP Jornada 720 at the starting price 9$, buy-it-now price 10$, packing, shipping and handling 450$. What am I missing?

HI Nenad,

The crux of the matter is the word "reasonable" which does not have any precise definition. So, it is merely a matter of ebay being able to do whatever they want. They could decide to disallow coburlin's $19.95 mouse shipping tomorrow, and there is nothing coburlin could do. Same thing with the $450. To me, that is not a "reasonable" shipping charge--cause I know that labor rates in Croatia are approximately 1/2 of NY, not 5 times higher, that international shipping for small items is generally not more than $100 etc. So I think the "reasonableness" of your proposal is easily questioned.

I think the $19.95 shipping slips by because it is not a high absolute value--only high relatively. There are many objects that would warrant a $20 charge.

Best regards,

Bill

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your response. You are right, the essential problem is the lack of strict definition for the word "reasonable".

Regarding the shipping costs etc. based upon estimation of the labor cost per hour, you are also right, this can be a good starting point to estimate "reasonability" (again) of the total cost.

Brilliant.

Or, we could focus on our own affairs rather than lose sleep worrying about the fun someone else is having.