Re: HP vs TI's SR-50 Message #11 Posted by Mike Morrow on 24 Mar 2012, 5:08 p.m., in response to message #1 by Matt Agajanian
The SR-50 was TI's first real scientific calculator, arriving more than two years after the HP-35.
The 1974 SR-50 was an amazing machine in its era, in many ways superior to the 1972 HP-35 and in a few ways even better than the 1973 HP-45. I was an EE student at Ga. Tech all during this time, during which the SR-50 ($170, $785 in 2012), HP-35 ($300, $1385 in 2012), and HP-45 ($400, $1847 in 2012) were all way out of my financial reach. I finally bought an SR-50 after getting a few paychecks after graduation. (I still have it, and it still works as well as when new.) Most of us then considered the SR-50 to be TI's competition to the HP-35, and not near the equal overall of the HP-45. Hyperbolic functions are good for feature bragging rights, but are seldom required. It would have been inconceivable to me at the time that HP needed to do anything in response to the SR-50 other than lower their prices. The SR-51 and -51A were TI's competition to the HP-45.
IMHO, the SR-50 is TI's most attractive calculator ever. From the time of the subsequent SR-50A and -51A, TI has seemed determined to produce the ugliest handhelds from that point on. HP tried to compete in the ugly arena from 1986 through 2006, but I think the award still goes to TI.
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