Happy Birthday Charlemagne

[Gene]

I remember meeting Bill for the first time a couple of weeks after that, perhaps in late March or early April. It was quite exciting for me, since I had known who he was since the early HP 41c days. I read through his article "Through the 41C with gun and camera" multiple times back then. And of course, his Synthetic programming book and hangman game.

Bill was sent on a tour to various cities to promote the HP 48SX. He came to Nashville near the Opryland Hotel and I received a mailing from HP with an invite.

When I got there, there were maybe 8-10 of us there.

I asked a lot of questions compared to the other people. :-)

"Why is there only 32K of ram?" -- His answer - with the PC hookup, you won't need as much ram as you might think.

"What is this MTH key?" -- His answer, given with a downcast look - was "The Math menu." He said he had complained about that, but the designers said they could only fit three letters on the key. I had asked because I didn't have a manual yet.


When I had a chance to speak with Bill via the HP live telepresence conference system back in 2007/2008 (?), I reminded him of this tour. He had no memory at all of going to various cities. :-) I told him that those of us who met him remembered and we were all thankful for such a series of wonderful machines.