HP 31E

[Trent Moseley]

Recently my son returned to me the 31E that I had given to him for school years ago. What does the "E" stand for?

tm

[wise-arse]

[Eric Smith]

I don't think there was any official explanation; it was just called the "E series". If I had to come up with a guess, I'd probably suggest that it meant "enhanced", as compared to the earlier series of calculators it replaced.

[Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)]

Hi, Eric;

What about differentiating between the continuous memory equivalents? I guess that only the Spices had this 'dual' series: HP33C against HP33E, and HP38C against HP38E. The only other case I recall is the HP25 against HP25C, but there was no additional letter to identify the first one because, I guess, the continuous version was introduced later. I'm not sure if this is true, but are there any other series from HP offering both a 'regular' and a 'continuous memory' for the same model? I saw the MoHPC front page and I saw no other series with an 'E' than the Spice's.

(added to the original post) But you may also be correct, because I checked for their introduction date and the three Spices with continuous memory (HP33C, 34C and 38C) were introduced in 1979, after the 'enhanced' ones (1978).

Cheers.

Luiz (Brazil)

OT - Mr. wise a..e is not aware of the fact that the HP31E has expensive prices because of other reasons than the technological ones; it was intended to be a low-budged model at that time. I had two of them and gave one as a gift to a dearest friend, exactly the one that filled the memory registers with some values other than zeroes, a good collecting unit; I also had three HP37E and used two of them as trading units. I still keep my own HP31E and an HP37E for researching purposes, only ;-)

Edited: 23 Apr 2005, 9:48 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

[Trent Moseley]

Thank you Luiz. I forgot mention that it is in perfect working order.

tm

[Michael F. Coyle]

Hi Luiz,

Quote:

---

What about differentiating between the continuous memory equivalents? I guess that only the Spices had this 'dual' series: HP33C against HP3E, and HP38C against HP38E. The only other case I recall is the HP25 against HP25C, but there was no additional letter to identify the first one because, I guess, the continuous version was introduced later.

---

Maybe you've got something here. It's obvious that "C" stands for "Continuous" (and also CMOS, the technology that makes it possible). So what could "E" stand for?

I'd like to propose that it means "Ephemeral" memory, as opposed to continuous :) (But in reality "Enhanced" is more dull and corporate and therefore, more likely to be correct.)

Any other good "E" words?

- Michael

[Eric Smith]

Quote:

---

What about differentiating between the continuous memory equivalents?

---

Those weren't introduced until later, so the "E" was most likely intended to distinguish the initial Spice line from the earlier calculators.

[Thibaut.be]

[Thomas Okken]

I seem to remember that the big selling point of the E series was their low price. They were the first models that HP marketed to high school students (in addition to their existing user base).

In terms of features, there wasn't anything spectacular there (the 33E was only a very minor step forward from the 25, for example), but they were using a whole new manufacturing process. If you have the HP Museum CDs, take a look at the HP Digest issues from that time.

- Thomas

[Tony Duell]

The other explanation I've heard was 'Easy to assemble', due to the fact that the first version of these machines had the chips and display fitted without soldering.

[Jake Schwartz]

At the time of introduction, I remember Richard Nelson saying that someone in Corvallis indicated that the HP folks thought that the "E" was "sexy". Never heard any explanation beyond that one...

Jake

[Palmer O. Hanson, Jr.]

Page 37 of my copy the Second Edition of Mier-Jedzejowicz's "A Guide to HP Handheld Calculators and Computers" says about the Spice models:

" ... For the first time, all the models in this series had a letter following the model number. Those with Continuous Memory had a 'C' like earlier models. All others had an E -- the announcement in HP Key Notes called this an 'Extensive low-end product line' but the E meant more than one thing. ..."

My Second Edition doesn't tell me what the other things might be. Perhaps that is covered in later editions.