HP34C on tv commercial

[marais]

The HP-34C can be seen for a split-second in the new EDF spot shown on french TV and cinema. The spot basically features how electric appliances accompany a young man throughout his life. The 34C evidently appears early in the spot, when the young man is in his 20s studying. Great commercial, great calculator.

[J-F Garnier]

I saw the spot, too. Are you sure it's a 34C? My guess was a HP-67...

J-F

[Namir]

I remember seeing a French movie (while I lived in France in 1978) starring Jean-Louis Trintignant who was a statistician for an insurance company and used an HP-65 to calculate the probability that people around him would die what "seems" a natural death (I may be off on the plot ... it's been a while since 1978). The movie was certainly a big plug for the HP-65. It even had a nice closeup shot of the calculator. It made you want to go out an buy one. Of course in that year the HP-67 was being sold. I remember staying glued to the TV set.

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Is this the movie?

Massimo

[Antoine M. Couëtte]

June 16, 2004

Same for me, I saw the commercial ... and it looks like an HP67.

Antoine

( Hello JF :-))) !!! )

[marais]

Well, I admit not being 100% sure, but owning both the 67 and the 34, I am still pretty certain - if anybody can get a record of the spot and post a screenshot, we could solve the riddle.

[Namir]

It sure is!!! THANK YOU!!!!

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Fine!
The first one who finds it could Divx the relevant excerpts and make them available to others...ok?

Greetings,
Massimo

[Jérôme Grandjanny]

I've found the clip at :
http://pubsservice5.free.fr/EDF-La_vie.zip
Unfortunately, it's a DivX movie and the screen-copy doesn't work, so I can't show you the photo. The HP calculator can be seen at second 21 from the beginning of the clip.
It can't be a 34C because upper keys are black instead of grey.
From the position of f and g keys and the presence of the PRGM/RUN switch, it's a 33E or 33C.

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Thank you!

Massimo

[Karl Schneider]

A news photo from 2000 of Enron's energy trading center in Houston accompanied an article that ran in the June 15, 2004 edition of the (Portland) Oregonian. A blond, bespectacled trader in the foreground of the photo has a Voyager-series HP calc in front of him. I would suspect that it is a 12C, given its availability and the (ahem) "business" work being performed in the center.

The credit for the photo is Phillippe Diederich of Getty Images. The article is by Richard A. Oppel of the New York Times News Service.

The content of the article is more interesting than the image of the HP calc...

[Namir]

That would be wonderful. I searched Amazon.fr and was unable to find it on DVD.

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Alas, I couldn't find it here in Italy, either...
Since it is a french/italian co-production it sounds funny.

Let's keep on trying!

Massimo

[marais]

I have a jpg image of the calc taken from the video, but I don't know how to post it here. It's definitely not a 65 or 67, that's for sure. Any ideas how I might publish the image?

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hello,

how big is the image, and how big is the video, supposed that it's an mpg file?

Maybe ask Dave?

Raymond

[marais]

The Video is almost 6MB, the jpg is just 11k.

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hello,

so if you could send it (the video & jpg) to me via email?
My account has room;-)

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

Raymond

[V-PN]

Hello,

so if you could send it (the video & jpg) to me via email? My account has room;-)

Many thanks in advance.

Regards,

Raymond XXX nope: VPN

[marais]

Raymond, I just sent you the image. I have yet to find a way to transfer the video; it's huge (6MB). Will you make the image available to the community, so we can answer the question once and for all which model was featured?

Regards
Andreas

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hi Andreas,

thanks for the picture.

It's an HP-33 (E or C) . This can only be distinguished if seen from the front.

It can be viewed here:
http://rdelt.bei.t-online.de/jpgs/hppub.jpg

For the video: You could slice it into two or three pieces
with WinZip or ARJ, then send me the pieces one at a time.

Regards,

Raymond

For the other pictures, an online comparison between

the displays of the SX,G(X), and 49,

all in the same type of machine,

please refer to the following article:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv014.cgi?read=56518

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Why not just taking it here? :-)

BTW: it is already zipped.

Massimo

[BatteryBoy]

Yes,

as the 34c has three shifts (f, g, h), and this one only has the f and g.

[David Smith]

Notice that the power cord is fake... it does not go where it should. Or mayby the battery contacts were corroded and somebody soldered the cord directly to the circuit board... and added internal filter and regulation circuitry.

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Many thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, after about 10 seconds,
the movie gets stuck,
but the movie time counter still walks to the right.
Anyone else having this effect?

Regards,

Raymond

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

It could be a codec problem.
Do you have a recent Divx release?

The Spice appears around 20" in the movie.

Massimo

[marais]

Mine's an avi file; I suppose that's the same quality as divx?

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Divx files have an .avi extension...

Use an editor and look at the beginning of your file: do you see "vidsdivx" and "DX50" strings?

Massimo

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hi,

and thanks for the codec hint.
I downloaded DivX 5.11 and now it works fine.

Never thought that a video would run for ten seconds

with a wron codec...

Raymond

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Glad you can see it now.
This actually is a little OT but (on the same PC) I've seen (no pun intended) some videos fine using one reader while another gave only audio rendering and a third nothing at all.

;-)

Massimo