HP 80 case

[Mike]

Hi,

There is an HP 80 on eBay advertised as complete but it
looks like it comes with the same molded plastic case that
the HP 65 came in.

Did the HP 80 ALWAYS come with the fancy leatherette case
when it was sold new by HP?

[Frank Knight]

I don't know for sure, perhaps some one else does. The molded case it is in appears to me (the current owner) to have either been with it as it was bought new or obtained concurrently with the purchase as it has an HP ID tag with the original owner's info on the top cover almost like it was a gift. I paid 208$ plus shipping last year on ebay for the set, and it did not come with a leather case, but it may not have been stored in the molded case with the manuals, or could have been an option since it was packed in the hard case. I wonder also how these may have been packaged/sold. I do have some leather cases on 35's-67's I am going to sell if you need one with it. BTW, reserve is set at 150$, less than my cost, so have at it!

[Tom Lianza]

Frank,

I may be missing the point here, but the early 80's came in a case that resembled an electric razor. The outside of the case was a leatherette. I just put a bid on an 80 unit with a molded case. I'm assuming that it is a later HP80. The originals had quite a bit of class. Some one wrote me a few years ago saying he had picked it up a yard sale for 50 cents, thinking it was an old shaver. I explained the value to him, it was absolutely mint. I offered $150 but he decided to keep it.

[Frank Knight]

Thanks for the bid on my unit, Tom, according to the date code, it is an early unit, in the first year (1972), so to the other writer's question, perhaps the case was bought concurrently as an accessory.

[Mike]

I was referring to the hard metal black leatherette case with the
fuzzy lining in the interior. See the HP-80 pictures here
on the hpmuseum. This case was meta with black leatherette on the
outside with a HP logo on the front. The case was designed
to hold the calc, soft leather carrying case, charger, and
quick reference manual. Again the HP-80 pictures here on
the hpmuseum are pretty clear.

So I guess my question still remains...did all the HP-80s
sold new from HP come with the metal leatherette case or did
later models ship with the molded plastic case too?

[Frank Knight]

Yes, I know what case you mean, I recently had an HP 45 that came in that black metal hp logo case, also bought used.

[Todd Garabedian]

Mike,

It's my understanding that later-produced HP-80s came in the same green hard case as the HP-45, 55, and 65. Additionally, as Frank K. points out, some HP-45 units came with the black leatherette case.

Todd

[Erik Wahlin]

I was wondering if anybody knows if the HP-80 came with a black leather case that does not have a belt loop. I have this particular kind of black leather case and suspect that it was used with the HP-80. Maybe because a business man would not be walking around with one attached to his belt?

[Peter]

Unless we're talking about a nerdy business man :)

Seriously though, I don't know.

[Joe R.]

Several of us including Dave Hicks hashed this out a couple of years ago. I contacted everyone that I could find that had original HP-80s and asked what kind of case their's came with. What we found was that the HP-80 came in both the black "electric razor" case and the standard molded plastic case. Then I learned that when HP was developing the HP-80 it was decided that since it would be sold to financal professional (bankers) they thought that it should have a nicer (less nerdy) case than the standard plastic one so they developed (or bought) the black metal cases. But somewhere in production the cases got mixed up and HP didn't seem to care so they deleivered the HP-80s in both type cases. They also deleivered the HP-45 in both style cases.