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A snowny day at a Colorado ski resort!

Posted by Bernie DiTullio on 10 July 2003, 5:01 p.m.

“It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculations.”

Gottfried WilhelmLeibniz (1646-1716)

After several day of sales training even at a ski resort in Colorado the 40 or so of us, HP Calculator Sales Engineers were ready to go home. But Alexis Sozonoff, Advanced Products Manager for HP had a surprise for us.

Out of his briefcase he pulls out a tiny, nine-ounce HP-35 Pocket Calculator. Mouths dropped, eyes were open wide and what were a group of tired, ski weary sales people became like school kids dying to get our hands on this marvel.

At HP we were use to innovation and state of the art technology but nothing prepared us for this revolutionary electronic slide rule.

We got our wish we were all handed a HP-35 demo unit. On the bus ride back to Denver all you could hear were fingers on keys as n!, 10e12 and RPN were explored.

It wasn’t long after that I was giving standing room only presentations to scientists and engineers at the National Bureau of Standards and the various Navy labs in the Washington D.C. area.

In my over thirty five year career at HP nothing came close to that event and the excitement the HP-35 generated. It was a once in a lifetime experience and everyone involved with that product launch knew it.

Edited: 24 Aug 2006, 5:41 p.m.

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