hp 32sII

[steve leong]

I was curious if the 32sII was made anywhere else beside Indonesia?

[emartin]

Earlier versions were also made in Singapore, up until the mid-90's. The Singapore versions are all the original blue/orange color scheme. Early Indonesia models (until ~ 2000) were also blue/orange, until ACO redesiged them and introduced the newer green/lilac models.

BTW, the build quality appears to be significantly worse on the newer models with the green/lilac scheme. They are probably just as durable, but little things such as the fit of the metal cover/bezel, registration of different print colors, etc. are sloppy and definitely not up to the "Old HP" standards.

[steve leong]

what does BTW stand for?

also i have seen some 32sII's with a silver border around the display are these the ones with the new color scheme that are not as well made?

[Karl Schneider]

Steve --

BTW "By The Way" -- standard abbreviation for electronic correspondence.

Yes, the green/lilac colors are the ones with the very light grey bezel around the display. Numbers on the keys seem to be sprayed on, not always straight and centered. I've seen this on the Chinese-made 12C's. I hope the paint doesn't wear off...

-- Karl

[Christof (Davis, CA)]

Hi, steve- I'm going to just reply to everything in one thread- keeps the display neater on my end :)

Chinese made calculators are made in china, as opposed to the indonesian made ones(which are not made in china, and have different country codes). If you look through some of the information on this website, there's a good section on decoding serial numbers- it doesn't seem to include the more recent china serial numbers, but it does explain the indonesian serial numbers.

More information on the chinese serial numbers (and related information like the bugs in some indonesian hp49g calculators) is available in the hp48 newsgroup (comp.sys.hp48) where the topic has come up on a few recent occasions.

The difference in colors (bue and orange versus the newer green and lilac) seems to reflect a chang ein major production. Not all of these elements have occured at the same time, but more recent calculators (since the 48g) seem to have a new color scheme. (I prefer the old one, myself). When they changed the 32sii to that new color scheme, along with the 20s, it seems to have been right around the time they also cheapened the production process and got rid of much of the real quality elements of hp design. The 12c also changed- the internals are now different (and presumably of lower quality, though I never use 12c calcs).

-Christof