15C Help

[Christopher Treen]

I'm at a customer site in Hamburg and my original (almost mint condition) handbooks are at home at the other end of Germany in Bavaria. I use my 15C for statistical analysis of silicon wafer surface uniformity when installing machines around the world - micro chip factories - cool job, huh?

Problem: Last week, my batteries faded (maybe only third time I have changed them in about 25 years). I bought three new ones and now have a small letter c in the display. My statistic functions are not working and return "error 3". Can anyone help with a quick fix.

Much appreciated!

Chris

[Ken Shaw]

Complex mode is Set. You must clear flag 8.

[g][CF][8]

[james summers]

Hi Chris

It's in complex mode - to deactivate clear flag 8 (keystrokes g CF 8).

James

[Christopher Treen]

Thanks to both of you for the quick response. That got rid of the 'c', but something is still odd here.

The statistical functions are still not working.
f[SUM] will not clear the registers and returns Error 3.

Using STO 0 or 1 and RCL 0 or 1 works
STO or RCL on any higher locations returns Error 3

[Sum+], g[Sum-] and g[x-bar] all return Error 3

Appears that something is "stuck" in memory. I pulled the batteries and let it sit a while, but still the same.

Any other ideas? I don't recall a "reset" key combination - Is there one? I did run the self-check and that passed ok.

Thanks again
Chris

[Chris McCormack]

According to page 263 of the manual ...

Quote:

---

If it appears that the calculator will not turn on or otherwise is not operating properly, use one of the following procedures:

1. Press the y^x and ON keys simultaneously, then release them. This will alter the contents of the x-register, so clear the x-register afterwards.

2. ...

---

The whole thing is available as a *.pdf at hp15c.org/hp15c.pdf

[V-PN]

sounds like your memory allocation is wrong. All of your memory is allocated for programs. CLEAR PRGM should fix it (or delete enough lines to release registers up to 7)

[Karl Schneider]

Chris --

Registers 2-7 are used for statistical summations. The minimum memory allocation that allows statistical-summation functions to be used is

7 f DIM (i)

g MEM 

will then show a "7" as the leftmost value of the memory allocation, as registers R0 through R7 are available to the user.

The default (master clear) allocation is 19, which provides registers R0 through R9 and R.0 through R.9 available to the user.
Of course,

19 f DIM (i)

will also accomplish this.

-- KS

[Christopher Treen]

Karl - Many thanks!! That was the solution.

g MEM showed "1 64 0-0"

Once I had set it back to 19, everything came back like an old friend.

Thanks also to everyone else who scratched their heads and provided inputs on this one.

It is a warning to what can happen when you wait too long to buy new batteries and then change them at the store.

It is 7:30am on Friday and I can now go and finish my job here.

As an FYI... I bought my 15C just after finishing university around 1987 in Plymouth, England with my first pay check. It had been a dream to own one through the preceding years of study when I really could have done with the functions - I am an electronics engineer (communication systems) - but life on a student budget didn't allow it.

Unfortunately, maybe like so many of us, I don't find a use for all the wonderful functions it offers on a regular basis, but when I whip it out at a customer site, it still generates ooo's and ahh's of appreciation with the older ones, while the younger ones cannot believe that something older than they are is capable of so many functions!

Very much appreciated!!

Chris

[Karl Schneider]

Chris --

Quote:

---

Karl - Many thanks!! That was the solution.

Very much appreciated!!

---

Certainly; my pleasure.

Quote:

---

As an FYI... I bought my 15C just after finishing university around 1987 in Plymouth, England with my first pay check. It had been a dream to own one through the preceding years of study when I really could have done with the functions - I am an electronics engineer (communication systems) - but life on a student budget didn't allow it.

---

My "history" is similar in a way, but also quite different.

I bought my HP-15C in November 1983 from a university bookstore in the USA, shortly after a scholarship with $100 monthly stipend took effect. The $109 purchase price consumed the stipend, but the calc was well worth the price.

However, I've heard that prices in foreign markets for HP calculators were quite a bit higher, which might explain the "student budget" comment.

Quote:

---

Unfortunately, maybe like so many of us, I don't find a use for all the wonderful functions it offers on a regular basis, but when I whip it out at a customer site, it still generates ooo's and ahh's of appreciation with the older ones, while the younger ones cannot believe that something older than they are is capable of so many functions!

---

I consider the HP-15C to be a hallmark of product-engineering excellence. Here's a link made aware to me by today's respondent to a post of mine from yesterday:

http://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/IssuePDFs/1983-05.pdf

Check out the articles starting on page 25 (HP-15C), and on page 36 (HP-16C).

References 1 and 2 of the HP-15C article are also relevant articles in Hewlett-Packard Journal that you can download from the same HP site.

-- KS

[Hal Bitton in Boise]

Hello Christopher,

Ever have any dealings with Micron Technology? I work for them in Boise, Idaho.

Best regards, Hal