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Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #1 Posted by aj04062 on 20 Mar 2011, 2:04 p.m.

Edited: 20 Mar 2011, 2:05 p.m.

      
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #2 Posted by Walter B on 20 Mar 2011, 2:53 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by aj04062

Hmmmh, with so many blank keys, it looks like a system they used 2008 - just missing the random number generator >;->

            
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #3 Posted by aj04062 on 20 Mar 2011, 3:27 p.m.,
in response to message #2 by Walter B

who is "they" HP?

                  
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #4 Posted by Walter B on 20 Mar 2011, 4:55 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by aj04062

The stock traders of course.

                        
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #5 Posted by db(martinez,ca) on 20 Mar 2011, 9:17 p.m.,
in response to message #4 by Walter B

Do you need a secret handshake to know which keys are assigned to boundless hubris, endless greed, pump & dump, call for taxpayer funded bailout, bongsmoke I.P.O., and naked shortsell?

                              
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #6 Posted by Eric Smith on 20 Mar 2011, 9:43 p.m.,
in response to message #5 by db(martinez,ca)

It's no secret. All of them.

                              
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #7 Posted by Walter B on 21 Mar 2011, 2:36 a.m.,
in response to message #5 by db(martinez,ca)

Quote:
Do you need a secret handshake to know which keys are assigned to boundless hubris, ...?
Encountered the second time, so please allow a linguistic question: Do you (i.e. English speaking people) generally replace the Greek "y" by "u"? It's spelled "hybris" on this side of the pond, at least on the continent AFAIK ... but I've already encountered someone claiming the Greek "M" and "N" are spelled "mu" and "nu" in English, respectively. OTOH I've never seen an odussey yet d:-?
                                    
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #8 Posted by Eric Smith on 21 Mar 2011, 4:06 a.m.,
in response to message #7 by Walter B

Quote:
It's spelled "hybris" on this side of the pond, at least on the continent AFAIK

"hubris" in the US

Quote:
but I've already encountered someone claiming the Greek "M" and "N" are spelled "mu" and "nu" in English, respectively.

Yes.

If you start from the premise that the English language follows a set of logical rules, you've already lost the battle.

                                    
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #9 Posted by DeboT on 21 Mar 2011, 8:01 a.m.,
in response to message #7 by Walter B

Quote:

Encountered the second time, so please allow a linguistic question: Do you (i.e. English speaking people) generally replace the Greek "y" by "u"? It's spelled "hybris" on this side of the pond, at least on the continent AFAIK ... but I've already encountered someone claiming the Greek "M" and "N" are spelled "mu" and "nu" in English, respectively. OTOH I've never seen an odussey yet d:-?


Hi Walter,

Despite the rigour with which spelling was taught when I was in school, it is not an exact science - especially when it comes to importing foreign words. Heck, even established words can vary e.g. someone who advises you can be an advisor or adviser - both forms are accepted. Then there is the argument about that black bit of rubber we put on our car wheels, "tire" or "tyre". Some say the one is American and the other UK spelling, but as this article shows it was never that clear cut. I know a Polish family here in England where different members spell their surname differently in an attempt to get the english to pronounce it correctly, a futile task as 5 miles - that's 8km in continental speak ;) - down the road they could be pronouncing things totally differently anyway.
                                    
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #10 Posted by Chris Randle (UK) on 21 Mar 2011, 3:10 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Walter B

Quote:
but I've already encountered someone claiming the Greek "M" and "N" are spelled "mu" and "nu" in English

Well, that's how they're spelt in Greek! The uppercase Greek Ypsilon "Y" is written "u" in lowercase, and "N" is written "v" in lowercase. Hence (in Greek) "mu" and "vu", but MY and NY.

The transliteration, unfortunately, usually leads to a mispronunciation, since we (English) tend to say "mu" as in music, whereas, in Greek, it's pronounced "me" as in me, myself.

                                          
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #11 Posted by Walter B on 21 Mar 2011, 6:36 p.m.,
in response to message #10 by Chris Randle (UK)

Thanks for the explanations. An example of divergent spelling came into my mind after my posting: "hubris" and hybrid - but I'll try hard not to ask questions about the intrinsic logic of this language anymore ;-)

The hypothesis that the English spelling reflects the Greek looks a bit off IMHO. While the Greek lower case Y looks similar to a Latin u, this tells nothing about the pronounciation, neither today nor when Sokrates spoke. Today it's pronounced like an English ee, but short. Way back it was pronounced like an ü - our well known detector for English speaking folks ;-)

                                    
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #12 Posted by db(martinez,ca) on 21 Mar 2011, 10:59 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Walter B

Walter; When i taught English as a Second Language (yes there IS an American English), my students would often ask "professor, por que...."----- why is the spelling in English so crazy?" I answered that it is not really as bad as it seems. A word from Ingles viejo is usually spelled using old English rules. The same goes for Welsh and Celtic words. What we inherited from Latin may have kept a Latin flavor in it's spelling. If we stole it from Spanish, French or Italian; those rules might apply. Our Dutch and German words will try to approximate what guttural sounds we've managed to keep. `A`a- and Pa-hoehoe, the Hawaiian words which have been adopted by English refer to these distinct types of lava, are spelled phonetically.
So our spelling just has lots of mutually exclusive sets of rules.

                                          
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #13 Posted by Martin Pinckney on 22 Mar 2011, 9:10 a.m.,
in response to message #12 by db(martinez,ca)

db, thanks for this. I was trying to formulate a similar response. The many odd spelling "rules" really come from the richness of English because of it's borrowing.

A similar observation can be made about cuisine. I had often heard snobbish American world travelers sniff that American "Italian" cuisine was nothing like "real" Italian cuisine. But I once employed a woman who married an Italian in Germany and lived there many years running a restaurant. On a visit to the U.S., they had tried some "Italian" cuisine. His reaction was something like "Oh, yes, this is just like my grandmother used to cook!"

                                                
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #14 Posted by Cristian Arezzini on 23 Mar 2011, 12:22 p.m.,
in response to message #13 by Martin Pinckney

Hi Martin, Just to add to your "American Italian cuisine"... I'm Italian, and my wife is American (from NY), so I get to travel to the US a lot, and though I don't usually eat at Italian restaurants there, it has happened in the past. There is an Italian place I remember, in Tarrytown (Westchester), where I had the best tiramisu ever - I'm serious, I never had one as good in Italy. But then there were a lot of italian restaurants (especially in Manhattan) that served things I've never, ever seen here in Italy - and which don't even make much sense as far as I'm concerned! :)

Cristian

      
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #15 Posted by Etienne Victoria on 21 Mar 2011, 10:25 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by aj04062

It is THE very overlay that was used on an Hp-41C tall keys with 4 (four) memory modules to trigger the whole economic crisis we're still struggling with.

The keys "Stock", "Index", "Trading" and "System" were incorrectly used by an engineer to try recover the value of the HP stock that went down because of Hp inability to relaunch a proper Hp-15C.

The calculator was connected to the whole financial planet through the Hp-IL --> nutIP and this allowed this evil/uncompetent engineer to contaminate the stock markets with his ill-conceived transactions.

You know the rest of the nightmare...

A "panic button" called "GOLD" was added to the overlay to enable immediate return to the gold stallion which would have allowed a stabilization of the economy.

However, the engineer determined that the "GOLD" key was solely designed to test the Hp-41 gold plated internal strip connector.

Therefore the only key he pressed after understanding his high magnitude mistake was (obviously) "Run"

Adding insult to treachery, a large engineer-driven lobby -including some of the most senior members of this forum- worked hard to put the blame on investors, bean-counters, marketing people ... and other TI renegates or even SWEKAs ("Simple Width Enter Key Apostates")

As one of the latter, I would like to thank you for allowing the pure simple truth to be established here.

No wonder, this overlay is difficult to identify.

Have a nice spring !

Etienne

            
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #16 Posted by Donald Williams on 21 Mar 2011, 2:00 p.m.,
in response to message #15 by Etienne Victoria

Etienne

Having been sworn to secrecy for many years I can finally divulge my knowledge of the events you portray. That renegade engineer finally repented and confessed to me shortly before his demise the facts concerning this catastrophe. May he rest in peace.

Of course the rumors about his activities have circulated for some time, and the details you have described are very accurate, but your dates are wrong. He ran his program in the late 1990’s which caused the “dot com” bust. He acknowledged his participation in the 90’s and accepted responsibility for the consequences, but he was bitter about the accusation that he caused the 2008 recession. He rightly reasoned that HPIL was just too slow to cause the 2008 recession. Having a penchant for calculator trading systems he was able to do some forensic investigations following the economic meltdown and this is his account of how the 2008 recession came about.

It was done on a TI BA II Plus.

It seems a summer Intern was hired by Wall Street executives to calculate the year end bonus. He was given a BA II Plus calculator to aid in his work. Details are sketchy, but the engineer in question deduced that the intern failed to include a complete set of parenthesis in the complicated formula. He also believed that half way through the task the keyboard had intermittent failures. In any case, instead of receiving bonuses the new calculations indicated the traders and brokers owed the calculated values. The faulty calculation results were posted on Face book for only about 5 minutes but the page received a million hits before it could be taken down. The traders and brokers, well aware of their past treachery, naturally assumed they had been finally caught, and behaved accordingly. Before the end of that day the real estate market was glutted with mansions and summer homes which precipitated the housing meltdown.

The rest of course is history. I believe he was telling the truth.

                  
Re: Can anyone Identify this HP-41 Overlay?
Message #17 Posted by Martin Pinckney on 21 Mar 2011, 2:35 p.m.,
in response to message #16 by Donald Williams

This is all very speculative, if you will pardon the expression. So far no one has offered an explanation of the labeling below the [3] key.

Does it describe what happened on the banks? The behavior of the traders?


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