The Museum of HP Calculators

HP Forum Archive 15

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Well, a HP 65 too
Message #1 Posted by WalterB on 9 June 2005, 1:32 a.m.

Please take a close look at this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5780872808

There were just four ways to do it, weren't they? Enjoy! ;^))

      
Well, a HP 65 too (oops!)
Message #2 Posted by WalterB on 9 June 2005, 1:44 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by WalterB

Eight ways of course, keeping some order in x and y! Allowing some line shuffling, too, this will result in 48 ways. Anyway... :-))

            
(deleted post)
Message #3 Posted by deleted on 9 June 2005, 2:10 a.m.,
in response to message #2 by WalterB

This Message was deleted. This empty message preserves the threading when a post with followup(s) is deleted.

                  
Re: Well, a HP 65 too -- spoiler warning
Message #4 Posted by sbirdasn on 9 June 2005, 2:32 a.m.,
in response to message #3 by deleted

Take a look at the museum picture and compare...

Humpty Dumpty-itis? Nah, too organized. But who knows what unspeakable things have been done that that poor defenseless machine... too funny.

Or maybe someone played a practical joke on a co-worker for a laugh. That would really mess with your head if a co-worker gave it to you (and you were used to another model) for just a few minutes to do some quick calculations. Fun and games all around. ;)

--sbirdasn

                        
Re: Well, a HP 65 too -- spoiler warning
Message #5 Posted by Chan Tran on 9 June 2005, 3:59 p.m.,
in response to message #4 by sbirdasn

I failed to see the point.

                              
Nice one
Message #6 Posted by james summers (UK) on 9 June 2005, 4:06 p.m.,
in response to message #5 by Chan Tran

Took me a while till I noticed the ABCDE keys at the top - someone's been inside methinks! And forgotten they were putting the keys in from the back!!

                                    
Re: Nice one
Message #7 Posted by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil) on 9 June 2005, 6:04 p.m.,
in response to message #6 by james summers (UK)

Maybe, when re-building (or re-destroying...) the calculator, the guy did not notice it should build the keys left-to-right instead if taking them right-to-left. I myself used to do this when tired enugoh that part of the brain was asleep. In all cases, I had to disassemble and reassemble the calculator. Maybe, in this case, part of the brain of the 'assembler' is inactive...

Cheers.

Luzi (Brazil)

                                          
Re: Nice one
Message #8 Posted by Randy on 9 June 2005, 6:24 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)

I once sent a 67 back to the owner with the decimal point and zero key swapped... He never did figure it out, he just thought there was a problem with the unit and sent it back. We both had a good laugh when I explained what was wrong. Thank heavens for a good sense of humor!

                                          
Re: Nice one
Message #9 Posted by sbirdasn on 9 June 2005, 9:45 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)

Yep, and I have on many occasions found myself over "correcting" and doing one too many reversals. It's easy since you are looking at the back as you put the keys back in place, and "know" that you need to "compensate". The whole thing is tricky to catch since often you spill everything if you attempt to peek and see if everything is going right. Been there, done that.

Still, I can't help thinking that most people would notice and fix it. Thus the possibility of being left deliberately for entertainment value. Also, it makes for people not liking to "borrow" your calculator since they have to think too much. It does have a sort of geek cachet for the owner that can drive such a beast and still be productive. ;)

I've known of people that do such things like switching keycaps around or painting over the legends so that other who don't touch-type very well will leave their equipment alone in the workplace.

sbirdasn.

                                                
Re: Nice one
Message #10 Posted by Wayne Brown on 10 June 2005, 5:14 p.m.,
in response to message #9 by sbirdasn

Quote:
I've known of people that do such things like switching keycaps around or painting over the legends so that other who don't touch-type very well will leave their equipment alone in the workplace.

I read something several years ago about a user who reported that she couldn't login on her computer if she was standing up, but it worked OK when she was sitting down. The tech support guy thought she was crazy, but he went to see what was happening. Sure enough, if she was sitting down everything was fine, but when she was standing up she always got "invalid password" when she tried to login. He watched her carefully a few times and finally realized what had happened. At some point she had dropped her keyboard and a few keycaps had popped off. She'd put them back on and gotten a couple of them switched. Since she was a touch typist, she hit all the correct keys when she was sitting down. But when she was standing up she couldn't touch-type and was looking at the keyboard to see where the keys were, and one of the letters in her password had the keycap in the wrong place, so she was hitting the wrong key.

                                                
Re: Nice one
Message #11 Posted by David Smith on 11 June 2005, 2:48 p.m.,
in response to message #9 by sbirdasn

A freind of mine was fixing his HP-67 and dropped the "A" key. His dog promptly jumped up and gobbled down the key. Rather than follow around the dog and sift through the doggie output, I got him a replacement key from another friend. A couple of months later, the original key turned up in the dog's bed.

                                                      
Re: Nice one
Message #12 Posted by db (martinez, ca.) on 12 June 2005, 2:00 a.m.,
in response to message #11 by David Smith

however the key got there; that's one dirty dog.


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