Talk:HP calculators

HP-42S
"Simply the best pocket calculator available. Still has its drawbacks and doesn't quite measure up to a 41c"

Erm. If it is 'simply the best', how come it doesn't 'measure up to the 41c'? Intrigue 07:28, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good point. Also, I'm not familiar with the calculator, but is 'simply the best' NPOV? Seems not to me.. :-\ splintax 14:40, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

HP 20b
I've been told that the HP 20b "Business Consultant" calculator was released in July 2008. Add it to this article? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 04:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

History
The HP35, 1972-1975, was the first hand-held scientific calculator. It was replaced by the much cheaper HP25 in early 1975. (There is a useful museum site for these devices, http://www.hpmuseum.org/) The HP35 was expensive at $350, and sales were slow. While the precision was good, the first 35k units had a flaw. For example ln(exp 2.02) returned 2.00 rather than 2.02. HP offered to replace them.

HP calcs are still around, although RPN is no longer the rule. Prices range form $15 to $200. 1970s HPs are collectors items, and a working HP25 with the original leather case and manuals will fetch $250. Thats about twice what it sold for in 1978, the final year of production. In early '75, the introduction year, it was $195 in the US, but quickly dropped to about $150 to match the TI offerings. The chances of an HP25 surviving the dreaded battery leak were slim. The nicad pack had to be replaced every 2yrs, which few owners ever did since the battery packs were $40 in 1975.

Texas Instruments were HP's only rival in the top end calculators of the 70s. Both used the power hungry led displays, and battery charges only lasted for 1hr. Prices ranged from $120 to many hundreds. Cheap calcs made in Taiwan appeared in the late 1975, but HP and TI kept the high professional end. By 1980 the lcd had arrived meaning two AA batts would last for months. Better and cheaper VLSI chips meant that high end calcs would retail for $20, and run for months on a carbon battery.27.33.244.147 (talk) 23:33, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

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manufactured
The article starts with HP calculators are various calculators manufactured by the Hewlett-Packard company over the years. As far as I know, in general, this isn't true. Many products designed and sold by a company are built by others. They might even contract out much of the design. iPhones are manufactured by Foxconn, but we call them Apple phones, not Foxconn phones. So, I believe it should say either sold or designed. Gah4 (talk) 21:08, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Except that they were manufactured by HP. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:43, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
 * The article says that some were designed by Kinpo. Were they built by Kinpo, HP, or someone else? Gah4 (talk) 07:17, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, the last ones were outsourced. But then they're of no significance whatsoever.
 * This is a dreadful article on an important topic. It conveys almost nothing useful about HP calculators. One of its faults is the order of the list in the middle, in particular it begins with those unimportant late-model disposable schoolkid models. This would be a far better article if it only listed four models here! These are the ones which matter: HP-35, HP-65, HP-41C, HP-16C and in that order. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:35, 8 July 2019 (UTC)


 * I might agree with you, but then there is WP:NPOV. Yesterday I bought an HP-45 at an estate sale, though I have to figure out how to replace the batteries.  I suspect that I would rather have the HP-45 than the newer ones that you mention.  As well as I know, though, unless you find a reliable source that those models are of no significance, they should be included.  As they are now included, the text should agree with the list. Gah4 (talk) 03:24, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Gah, do you go out of your way to perversely misunderstand everything I write, at every article? Andy Dingley (talk) 09:32, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * No. Your name is familiar, but I don't remember which other pages I might have seen it on. I don't keep track of people and which pages they edit. Gah4 (talk) 11:23, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * BTW, much as I too would like to find a nice HP-45, it still has only trivial value to the history of HP calculators, because it's no more than an improved HP-35. Andy Dingley (talk) 09:34, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * This page isn't History of HP Calculators, though I suppose there could be one of those. We might disagree with decisions that HP makes, but are supposed to fairly document here the calculators that they sold and sell. I suppose it could be arranged as a sortable table, so one could sort based on name or date of introduction, or some other column. Gah4 (talk) 11:23, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

The timeline should be chronological, not alphabetical!
No HP enthusiast wants to scroll the timeline by the name. We all want to scroll it by date!

If somebody wants to find a particular calculator, they'd Find it. Right? Gwrede (talk) 23:52, 26 December 2023 (UTC)