[Elecraft] FORTH - OT

[Mike Morrow]

The following is OT commentary on HP calculators, so please delete now if not interested.

Mark wrote:

>I'm holding on to my HP15C which I bought in college in
>1987... 

I was a junior at Ga. Tech in 1972 when the famous HP-35 appeared.  At $400 in 1972, that's about $1800 today.  You could literally buy a passable used car for the price of the HP.  Needless to say, few of us owned one, and its use was generally not allowed on tests.

>My boss here was looking for a good RPN calculator
>and figured he might find that one on eBay cheap...
>Turns out that very good examples of it ... are about 
>$300 to $400.  

The HP15C was a great machine for its time in the early to mid-1980s.

>Not sure when (or why) HP discontinued it. 

It was replaced in 1988 by the HP42S, whose capabilities and ease of use (but unfortunately not style and appearance) are far far far in excess of those of the HP15C.  Just look at HP42S prices on ebay and you'll see that reflected.  It is arguably, for its size, the finest scientific calculator ever made.   Unfortunately, it was discontinued in 1995, with no equivalent or better product taking its place.

>I also have an HP48G+ which is still RPN.  Not sure if it is still made or not.

Members of the whole HP48-series are capable (I've got three), but difficult to use without plenty of familiarization.  They are way too large and heavy to be considered a pocket machine.  They are simply too sophisticated.  What real good is having an object-oriented programming system in a handheld?  I want a simple programming language with "go to" instructions!  With the HP48 series, what one notices most is not how simple it is to handle something difficult, but how difficult it is to handle something simple.

Chris wrote:

>Are there any decent modern RPN calcs? I had a much loved
>HP32SII but I lost it ... and have not been able to find a decent 
>replacement.

HP32SII's are all over ebay for small prices.  You should be able to find plenty of NOS units.  But, IMHO, it is a very aggravating machine to use, especially for complex-domain number crunching.  The long-discontinued HP42S is the standard against which all other pocket programmable RPN calculators should be judged...all others pale in comparison, even though the HP32SII is significantly faster than the HP42S.

There's something more friendly about a pocket calculator, compared to superwhamodyne handheld PC units.  But I think it's a dying market.  In my day, the pocket scientific calculator was an essential tool of engineering professionals.  Today, even the most sphisticated units are primarily student tools.

Mike / KK5F