Re: POLL: Who killed the beast? Message #18 Posted by Martin Pinckney on 12 Feb 2011, 3:30 p.m., in response to message #17 by Thomas Okken
Thomas,
Your analysis is basically sound. The size of the market for scientifics was permanently reduced by the advent of relatively cheap computers. I know in my case, when I got my first PC, engineering software was either very expensive, or just was not available for the specific problems I had to solve. So I wrote my own. Why continue to program a calculator when you were spending time writing programs for a more powerful platform? Now, of course, engineering software proliferates.
But decades later, there still exists a continuing demand, although much smaller, for quality scientific calculators.
HP has only partly met that demand since the end of the Pioneer and 48gx era. After floundering with the 49's, they seem to have got a winner in the 50g. But for a smaller form factor, they've not yet got it right. The 33s was not well received. Great hopes were placed in the 35s, only to become a disappointment when they actually were in hand.
HP seems to be serving the business/financial market well with the 12c+, 17bii+ silver and 30b; why can't they do the same for the scientific/engineering market? I still think they will soon.
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