Re: HP 15C-LE replacement still available? Message #7 Posted by Borja on 20 Aug 2013, 10:53 a.m., in response to message #6 by Thomas Radtke
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Well, my sample is perfect when it comes to hardware, but you know about the bugs that, allthough possible, never have been corrected. Still, my money also went into one 10BII+ and one 20b.
As many of us, I never learn ;-).
The thing is: in the past those bugs never got to be corrected, because firmware was embedded in ROM chips. And the reissue is exactly the same, bugs and all, which has the advantage that results will be exactly the same, not new bugs, not unexpected results if you happen to use a program that works around one of the bugs.
What really irks me is the stupidity of the hardwware aspect. Of all the products that HP still sells (I won't dare say "make"), calculators are the only ones that have an "apple-esque" (*) following. And it was well deserved in the past.
So, they take an old model that has developed a legendary reputation. A premium piece of hardware. And they reissue it with a poorly designed keyboard, which is even sillier if you think that keyboards have actually been one of the most outstanding aspects in HP calculators.
Instead of doing that they could have sold t-shirts or plastic models inside a transparent plastic box, or maybe heavier resin models to be used as paper weights. I am sure many of us would have bought one out of nostalgia.
At the end, all of this turns out to be a terribly stupid mistake by HP. Years ago I was convinced that HP was the dominant Unix workstation vendor in engineering outfits in part because many engineers had developed a love relationship with their trusty calculators which no other manufacturer could match.
Now, that same manufacturer sells an alleged premium product which turns out to be a turd, a kind of cheap knock-off of their own premium product!! The Monty Pythons would love the twist.
(*) I'm mentioning Apple because it's the most visibly loved manufacturer. But you can find similar followings around other high quality stuff such as Fluke multimeters, Lecroy oscilloscopes, Lowe HF receivers…
Edited: 20 Aug 2013, 11:00 a.m.
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