Xpander article

[Egan Ford]

http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/xpander

[Karl-Ludwig Butte]

Hi Egan,

thanks a lot for sharing this article. I'll never understand that HP decided to cancel the Xpander project back then. Now Casio is successfull with the Classpad300 & 330 and already Casio heralded the next technical generation with the fx-CG20. Next year will be the 40th anniversary of the HP-35. This would be a perfect chance to reclaim the title "No. 1 calculator manufacturer". But to do this something really spectacular would be needed, like e.g. "Around the world of Mathematics with HP-Calculators" and should cover the whole world - not just the U.S. HP - are you listening ?

What do you fellow members of this forum think ?

Kind regards

Karl

[hpnut]

Yes, i agree. HP does not live upto to its motto "HP Invent!" :-(

at least as far as calculators go. bring back the classics!

[Arnaud Amiel]

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bring back the classics!

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I would not call this living to its motto...

Anyway, there were a few drawbacks with the Xpander. I am lucky enough to have one and the screen is a bit cracked. Don't know how it happened, I took it out of its case before my last move and it was a bit cracked...

[Tim Wessman]

One name should explain it all - Carly.

It was days from launch, production was ramped up, they had done a ton of work with testing boards to ensure it would be allowed despite having a touchscreen and stylus, had units seeded to thousands of educators, had hosted a large educator conference to teach them about the potential, and in short was getting ready to radically change things.

But HP doesn't do education. We only sell computers. . .

TW

PS - I have one too that cyrille left me when he moved to France. I'd never really had the chance to play with it much until then. It honestly was a bit too basic and needed a lot of work to flesh out features and capabilities, but it would have been a solid first release.

Edited: 19 July 2011, 10:23 a.m.

[Jake Schwartz]

At the HPCC 20th-Anniversary HP calc conference at the Imperial College in London, both Cyrille and Jean-Yves Avenard spent loads of time talking about work at the ACO "division" in Australia and the events surrounding ACO's demise, which caused the abrupt cancellation of both Xpander and the Jornada X25 PDA (along with everything else). It was very enlightening. If it hadn't been for the subsequent efforts of Fred Valdez in San Diego, the calc group might not have been in existence today.

Jake

[Jake Schwartz]

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At the HPCC 20th-Anniversary HP calc conference at the Imperial College in London....

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Whoops! I forgot to say that this was in 2002.

Jake

[Patrice]

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One name should explain it all - Carly.

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The whicked witch ?

[Arnaud Amiel]

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It honestly was a bit too basic and needed a lot of work to flesh out features and capabilities, but it would have been a solid first release.

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I agree that it is a good platform for high school and could have easily evolved towards something more powerful. I love the elements table applet it has. Lots of similar things could have been made if the drive had been there.

[Karl-Ludwig Butte]

Hello Tim,

thanks a lot for your answer and the information. It must've been very frustrating for all involved at that time. I find it difficult to get information about what happened to and within Hewlett-Packard after the founders retired. I read "Bill & Dave" and Dave Packard's book - better say, I devoured them. But the retreat of Bill and Dave must have had such a deep impact on the company although it took some time until the negative effects showed up. But I can only speculate. Do you have any URLs or recommended books and/or articles to better understand why things happened as they did ?

Thank you very much in advance.

Kind regards

Karl

[Tim Wessman]

Not really. I was just barely graduating high school at the time.

TW

[Pal G.]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=hp+carly&x=0&y=0

[Karl-Ludwig Butte]

Hi Tim,
Hi PalG,

thanks a lot to both of you for your answers. Now let's see which titles of the comprehensive amazon-list is available in Germany ;-)

Kind regards

Karl