You sure, Gene ? Message #31 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 11 June 2004, 5:25 a.m., in response to message #12 by Gene
Hi, Gene ! :-)
Gene, don't get angry with me ! An opinion is never "unfair", everyone of us has his/her own tastes ("horses for courses", as they say), and most specially if there are plausible reasons to substantiate it. Let's answer your points:
"The objective appears to have been, quite reasonably, IMO, to do so as easily/quickly as possible"
I can't speak for you, but I didn't buy HP calcs because they were produced by HP as "easily/quickly" as possible, but because they were produced at the highest possible quality. The "easily/quickly as possible" motto may be great for HP but their customers of old couldn't care less. That's an HP issue, not a customer issue. The mottos who made us all devoted HP fans were "the highest quality", "state-of-the-art", "cutting edge" and so on. Maybe some people will settle for "as easily/quickly as possible", and
lower their expectations accordingly. Not me. I was drawn into HP for their "best quality in the whole world" and I'm too spoilt by now to settle for less. HP of old taught me to think so, and rightly so.
"Regarding the memory issue...HP could have put in a 4K or 8K chip, but since the 32K chip was probably only pennies MORE, they dropped it in...after all, who knows what those enterprising HP users might make of extra room."
You are experiencing a case of self-delusion if you really believe that thought crossed HP minds. There are only two reasons why HP decided to put in the 32 Kb chip. The first and foremost is because it's *cheaper* than 4K or 8K. Those are actually harder to get in quantity, because manfucturers find it easier to produce and sell the larger chip.
Just for instance, this same week my company needed to get hold of a number of 4.2 Gb hard disks to honor a maintenance contract. The disks must be that exact size because of an
automated replication process. Guess what ? They are nearly
impossible to get, everyone is offering 120 Gb HD and the like. And the very few we found were *more expensive* than brand-new 120 Gb HD !!?!
So don't indulge in HP kindly fitting the 32 Kb chip because "who knows what those enterprising HP users might make of extra room". C'mon ! You're an adult ! Current HP doesn't entertain those blissful thoughts for a moment !!
As for the second reason, plain and simple: marketing. "Let's fool our customers into thinking they're getting 32 Kb for their money. They can't sue us because indeed the machine does have 32 Kb RAM. And nowhere did we put in writing that they would be able to actually use it as they rightly expected to."
"Say this a few dozen times over and over... "This is a 32SII clone""
Aw ! So you think that repeating something a large number of times, mantra-like, makes it truer ?? Fascinating ! ...
"I do agree it is DIFFICULT to use the 32K of ram, but that doesn't mean you can't do it...you just have to learn a new way to program."
Fascinating again ! HP will really make a bunch of followers this time. A new way to program, RPL wasn't good enough after all. They've improved on it. Let's see this superb, amazing paradigm of structured programming:
"Everything you thought you knew about writing programs before the 33S must be relearned."
Good. After spaghetti BASIC programming we had to learn structured, GOTO-less programming, which was better, then object-oriented programming, which also was an improvement. Re-learning is good, it will shape our programming minds for the better. Let's see:
"1) GOTO branching? Nope. Set a flag and continually test the status of the flag in a long string of steps to take."
Uh ?!
"2) Efficiency? Why do that? Just repeat code segments - never do subroutines."
Double-Uh ??!!
And you want me to take this seriously ? Not only do I get a freakish, grotesque, misshapen, garish-colored calculator whose keyboard will do nothing for my fingers, whose size will do nothing for my pocket, whose display will do nothing for my eyes, whose very style will do nothing (good) for my reputation, but it will also *completely ruin* my hard-earned good-programming habits ??!?!?!
That's what HP is promoting now ? The worst programming style possible ? That's what you want your children to learn ??
Come to think of it, it should be forbidden. Maybe someone can sue HP for ruining their children's programming education and make a little fortune. It's a dead ringer, you'll make millions !! :-)
Best regards from V.
[Edited just in order to correct a few typos]
Edited: 11 June 2004, 6:30 a.m. after one or more responses were posted
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