Re: In what year was your HP lust kindled? Message #9 Posted by Walter B on 19 July 2009, 5:15 a.m., in response to message #1 by hecube
For me, it was a refurbished HP-25C in 1977. I easily sold my first calculator then, a TI SR 50 I bought 2 years earlier since HP was way (!) too expensive for me as a student at university. I remember when I first saw an ad of the HP-45 it was priced >1200 DM. I leave it to the experts to calculate this in today's currencies.
There were many internal debates in mid-seventies in physics classes about the "best" scientific calculators one could buy. It was only between TI and HP then, the other brands available were rated "cheap scrap". At that time, build quality and durability of HP's keyboards was exceeding TI's by far. So, yes, it was a kind of "lust" (German) to use one of those, though it was a bare necessity for me.
5 years later I replaced it with a 11C. A 15C or 41C was too expensive, and the 11C had all I really needed -- even L.R.! It was great progress compared to the 25C, so I enjoyed it.
I had to buy a replacement 8 years after this. And I bought an HP again, a 32S (42S was too expensive), but I don't remember a "lust" then. It was a tool, nothing more. I still have it today. My collection started many years later, when I saw an old HP-97 at work.
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