HP Forum Archive 14

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Cool! I'm going to Paris next week Message #1 Posted by Mike on 4 Oct 2004, 11:19 p.m. Guess who has come out of early-retirement and gone back to work? And, I'm going to Paris next week and several times after that. Maybe someone from France can give me a heads up on where to look for calculators in France. Email me at Edited: 4 Oct 2004, 11:33 p.m.

Re: Cool! I'm going to Paris next week Message #2 Posted by Thibaut.be on 5 Oct 2004, 3:52 a.m., in response to message #1 by Mike No sure you'll find more calculators in Europe than in the US. I'm going to LA at ther end of the month and I hope to find some treasures in pawn shops...

Re: Cool! I'm going to Paris next week Message #3 Posted by Arnaud on 5 Oct 2004, 4:31 a.m., in response to message #1 by Mike If you take the Metro to Maubert-Universite, you can't miss the calculator (and PDAs) shop Arnaud

Re: Cool! I'm going to Paris next week Message #4 Posted by Namir on 5 Oct 2004, 4:41 a.m., in response to message #1 by Mike Mike, Make sure you compare prices. Calculators in France are about twice as expensive as they are in the USA.

OT: French power and cell phone coverage Message #5 Posted by Mike on 5 Oct 2004, 8:56 a.m., in response to message #1 by Mike RE: Calculators I was primarily wondering where one might come across vintage calculators. What types of shops or places might one find old calculators (electronic or mechanical)? OT: Well, I guess I should check this out on a travel site but since there are people from France that visit this forum, I thought it might be a good place to ask. What type of power do they have in France? Do I need an adapter for my AC powered devices like laptops and cell phone chargers. Also, I have a Treo 600 GSM phone that is supposed to work in France. Anyone know for sure? Edited: 5 Oct 2004, 8:57 a.m.

Re: OT: French power and cell phone coverage Message #6 Posted by Thibaut.be on 5 Oct 2004, 9:22 a.m., in response to message #5 by Mike Voltage is 220V AND 50Hz. Most modern adapters can cope with ranges of 100 to 240V, as I can notice on the one opf my laptop and of my mobile for example. In case of doubt, refrain, as you can fry your adapters and devices. If your mobile is tri-band, no problem, you'lle be fine. There is at my knowledge no specialized store in vintage calculators, but I occasionally spot a few in pawn shops such as "Cash Converters" and "Troc de l'Ile". Enjoy your trip in Paris, and make sure you get French Euros !

Re: OT: French power and cell phone coverage Message #7 Posted by Mike on 5 Oct 2004, 11:51 a.m., in response to message #6 by Thibaut.be French Euros? Thought euros were all the same. PS: posted this from my Treo

Re: OT: French power and cell phone coverage Message #8 Posted by Wayne Brown on 5 Oct 2004, 2:04 p.m., in response to message #7 by Mike Euros have the same value in each country that uses them, but each country issues their own, with their own distinctive designs. They can be used interchangeably. When we were in London recently my son wanted to get samples of Euro coins from various countries, but all the currency exchanges we visited carried only Euro notes, not coins. We did bring back a nice selection of British coins and currency, though. You can find pictures of the various Euro coin designs here: Euro coins

Re: OT: French power and cell phone coverage Message #9 Posted by Thibaut.be on 5 Oct 2004, 2:52 p.m., in response to message #7 by Mike It's trap in which you did not fall in. When, in early 2002, Euro became a reality to us European guys (at least for the ones who dared to join the €), my wife and I went to Paris to do some shopping. I withdrew brand new € at a cash dispenser in Belgium. When I wanted to pay our (understand : my wife's) purchases at the "Galleries Lafayette" till, I asked the salesperson if it mattered that these were Belgian Euros. She was dazzled, asked her supervisor, who asked her supervisor... well, a lot of people were advised and no one seemed to dare to give the correct answer. The chief accountant, at least I understood he had a high level of responsability in the business, arrived, said he was sorry for the inconvenience, (I was burtsing into laughter, but could not show it), took his mobile and asked his banker if there were some exchange fees to accept belgian Euros. He was reassured that not, and took the responsability to accept them. There had been such a € campaign on all national TV's, and in a store such as Lafayette, which is a kind of Wall-Mart, not only the salespersons but the supervisors had no idea how to treat our new currency. As a finance guy, this is probably the funniest thing I ever encountered.

Re: OT: French power and cell phone coverage Message #10 Posted by Vassilis Prevelakis on 6 Oct 2004, 1:42 a.m., in response to message #5 by Mike be very careful with roaming in Europe. I have just had a nasty experience with some totally outrageous roaming charges. Read the following text from two emails I got from the T-Mobile tech support. While you are overseas and your handset is turned on, you are using a carrier that charges roaming rates for users who are temporarily using their network. Once attached to that network, you are accepting that carriers user agreement, and accepting to pay all associated charges that may be a result of you using their network. As soon as you receive a call to your T-Mobile handset, because it is turned on and waiting for a call, we send the call through to your handset. Because the handset is using an International carriers signal to receives that call, they will charge you for the connection. Some carriers do not charge for the airtime and network resources that are used while the handset is ringing and waiting for a connection, and there are some carriers that do charge for the same time. ------------------------------ If you do not answer an incoming call, the call is forwarded from overseas to the states. Again, calls are rounded to nearest minute, so a one-minute charge with roaming charges is added again. In effect, a two-minute call will be charged to your account for every unanswered call while overseas when the call forwarding is active. In my case this "forwarding" business included calls to voice-mail. So somebody called and left a 5 minute message on my voice-mail, and I was asked to pay for 10 minutes of roaming ($15). This is the type of "feature" that can bankrupt you.

Say what? Message #11 Posted by Mike on 6 Oct 2004, 9:05 p.m., in response to message #10 by Vassilis Prevelakis I have international roaming discount package. But are you saying that you accrue minutes by just having the phone on, even if no one calls you?

Re: Say what? Message #12 Posted by Vassilis Prevelakis on 7 Oct 2004, 1:10 a.m., in response to message #11 by Mike Mike wrote: > are you saying that you accrue minutes by just having the phone on, even if no one calls you? No, but they appear to imply that if somebody calls you, you may be cahrged even if you leave the phone ringing. Essentially what I am saying is that you'll have a hard time arguing about bogus charges. Although having said that, I did manage to get T-Mobile to cancel these charges, but it was a one-off. The statements I quoted in my previous email are statements made IN WRITING by T-Mobile support. **vp

Re: Say what? Message #13 Posted by Raymond Del Tondo on 7 Oct 2004, 2:11 a.m., in response to message #11 by Mike Hi Mike, to make it short, the most important points are: Turn off your phone mailbox while outside the U.S. , and leave your mobile phone off when not in use. This way you'll minimize superfluous service fees (roaming). Bon Voyage! Raymond

Re: Cool! I'm going to Paris next week Message #14 Posted by Emmanuel, France on 5 Oct 2004, 3:01 p.m., in response to message #1 by Mike Dear Mike, There's MAUBERT ELECTRONIC at 49 boulevard SAINT-GERMAIN, 75005 PARIS. Their site is http://www.maubert.com/ I know the owner, Miss LEMOINE, a nice person. Yours. Emmanuel COMPES, EVREUX (80km far from Paris) PS Remove SPAM from my email if you want to contact me for further information

Have a good trip! *NM* Message #15 Posted by Eddie Shore on 6 Oct 2004, 1:21 a.m., in response to message #1 by Mike *NM*

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