HP Forum Archive 14

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How to engineer a perfect calculator in the 21st century Message #1 Posted by Joerg Woerner on 14 Sept 2004, 2:36 a.m. Hi community As a collector of vintage calculators from the 70's I'm usually disappointed by the common Kinpo and co calculators of this century. You know them all, these HP-30S, TI-30X IIS, Canon, Casio, Karce et al stuff. But this night I made a great discovery ! I started to disassemble a brand new released calculator and - believe it or not - it is made in China AND brought all the memories of the HP-35 and SR-50 back. WHY ??? Because it is the best engineered calculator I discovered the past 10 years. Let me start point by point before blowing the fog away: 1. It looks great and feels heavy. 2. The keyboard makes a crisp click with a precise feedback. 3. The calculating precision is much better than expected. More details: The housing is made of two shells, the upper one is covered with a thick, brushed aluminium sheet metal. This wonderful faceplate is partly polished. The lower half of the shell hides the 4 screws under large rubber pads like you know it from your lovely HP's. Inside the lower shell are two huge pieces of metal to give the calculator a strong weight. The keyboard uses a well known technology, too. Every key is composed of a small disk spring and a (unfortunately not double shot) molded plastic key. Internal calculations are based on 13-digit which are rounded to a 10-digit result on the bright display. Running Mike Sebastian's calculator forensics gives a result with a really small error (8.999 999 999 xxx). Since the HP-33S necessary to mention: The display sports good comma and thousands separators... The calculator is still behind the fog ? I purchased mine last week at a Staples for about $60 - the name plate: TI BA II Plus Professional. BUY AND ENJOY !!! Regards, Joerg

Re: How to engineer a perfect calculator in the 21st century Message #2 Posted by Thibaut.be on 14 Sept 2004, 5:39 a.m., in response to message #1 by Joerg Woerner No doubt you are perfectly right on what you say, and I certainly appreciate that this calculator is far beter engineered than all the other, including the recent HP's. But to my opinion it just lacks one thing that will never make me buying it : RPN. I'm working daily on a 12C, mainly as a number banger, and god ! how this RPN is far superior to algebraic !

Re: How to engineer a perfect calculator in the 21st century Message #3 Posted by KC on 14 Sept 2004, 6:04 a.m., in response to message #1 by Joerg Woerner How about RPN? And strong weight is a pro? KC

Re: PICTURES ADDED Message #4 Posted by Joerg Woerner on 14 Sept 2004, 1:06 p.m., in response to message #1 by Joerg Woerner I just posted some pictures: www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_1.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_2.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_3.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_4.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_5.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_PCB.jpg www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/Images/BAII_PlusProf_PCB1.jpg Regards, Joerg

Re: PICTURES ADDED (links added) Message #5 Posted by Jeff O. on 15 Sept 2004, 7:27 a.m., in response to message #4 by Joerg Woerner I took the liberty of linking all of your pictures to display here:

Re: PICTURES ADDED Message #6 Posted by hugh steers on 15 Sept 2004, 3:34 p.m., in response to message #4 by Joerg Woerner great pictures, thanks. any idea where i might get one in the uk?

Re: PICTURES ADDED Message #7 Posted by bill platt on 15 Sept 2004, 3:52 p.m., in response to message #6 by hugh steers http://education.ti.com/uk/product/cdlt/baiip.html Regards, Bill

Re: PICTURES ADDED Message #8 Posted by Joerg Woerner on 17 Sept 2004, 4:32 p.m., in response to message #6 by hugh steers I posted one on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3838760951 Joerg

Have you split open a TI-89 Titaninum? Message #9 Posted by Eddie Shore on 17 Sept 2004, 8:41 a.m., in response to message #4 by Joerg Woerner I felt the keys on the BAII+Pro (which I plan on buying in upcoming months) on a demo and compared to the feel on the 89T. The feel is similar and stable. HP should take a cue.

Re: OPENED - TI-89 Titaninum Message #10 Posted by Joerg Woerner on 17 Sept 2004, 4:31 p.m., in response to message #9 by Eddie Shore Yes, it was already opened. But it uses standard keyboard technology. I placed some pictures here: http://www.datamath.org/Sci/Modern/JPEG_TI-84PLUS.htm#89TSCREEN Regards, Joerg

Re: How to engineer a perfect calculator in the 21st century Message #11 Posted by Hugh Evans on 14 Sept 2004, 1:51 p.m., in response to message #1 by Joerg Woerner Excellent. I would love to see TI using tactile switches on all of their machines, and better still would be the addition of an RPN mode. I'm not saying this because I want HP driven out of the marketplace-- I want them to compete directly with TI. A little competition can go a long way. Let's hope this persists!

Re: How to engineer a perfect calculator in the 21st century Message #12 Posted by Daniel on 18 Sept 2004, 1:06 p.m., in response to message #1 by Joerg Woerner That is a nice looking calculator. Do you know if they will make a scientific version of similar quality? I own a TI-30XII and dislike the ghosting affect on the display among other things.

I wanted to ask the exact same question [NT] Message #13 Posted by Chris Roccati on 21 Sept 2004, 3:24 p.m., in response to message #12 by Daniel [No Text]

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