Re: 2009 To Celebrate 30 Years Since the HP41C Was Released Message #25 Posted by Karl Schneider on 5 Jan 2009, 3:19 a.m., in response to message #24 by Jeff Kearns
Hi, Jeff --
(A thanks for coming to the defense of Walter and me earlier in the thread...)
Your description of personal history pertaining to the HP-41 and other calc's sounds familiar...
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TI-30 that my parents had given me for Christmas
Same here; in 1977, I think...
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and the never ending stack of 9V batteries that went a long with it
Yes indeed, especially since the rechargeable pack very quickly lost its ability to take and retain a charge.
Eventually, yet another 9V disposable cell failed -- in electronics class, so I connected it to a DC power supply after measuring the voltage. I may have connected it backwards, because the display failed within seconds, and I never used it again.
The replacement was a Casio fx-3600P, which I used for the first two years of university. It had Simpson's Rule integration, which was useful.
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After high school I would often browse the calculators on display in electronics stores in Ottawa while I prepared for university, but I could never afford the high price tags.
I made a few special visits to check out the HP-41 in 1980-81 (HS senior and college freshman), but just couldn't justify the considerable expenditure...
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in third year a professor offered up a HP-15C for $100
I bought my HP-15C new for $109 in 1983 in the first quarter of junior year, and used it thereafter for the remainder of that degree program and two more in the 1990's...
The HP-15C is a much better pure calculator, if advanced programmability and expandability are unimportant to you:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv014.cgi?read=61367#61367
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Over the past twenty years I have acquired some dozen or so HP calculator models
I started collecting in 2002 and acquired about 20 HP models, plus a few duplicates, accessories, and non-HP models.
-- KS
Edited: 5 Jan 2009, 3:21 a.m.
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