[VA] Good News, Everyone: Announcing my brand-new HP-related site !

[Valentin Albillo]

 
Hi, all:
      
Paraphrasing Futurama's Prof. Farnsworth, I want to let you know about some potentially "Good News for Everyone !" in the HP-calc fan community, which has been long in the making and I'm putting it into public awareness with this very post. Details:

The news is that it seems I've finally succeeded at putting all my calc-related materials online again, after a decade or two of unavailability when my ancient web site (which was free and so hopelessly add-ridden) just disappeared, which I ignored for a while as I had some bad experiences re HP-calc matters and further I was quite busy with big, real-life professional projects.

However, after a number of years the wounds somewhat healed and I was bitten again by the HP-calc bug so I tried to create a new web site to upload my materials, most especially programs and articles, in order for them to be available for free, for all intested people to download and presumably enjoy. However, I was unable to find the correct site which fulfilled my requirements about cost (zero) and ease of use, among others.

Fortunately, Eric Rechlin offered to help me achieve that and it seems this time all will work fine as he's made some provisions for me to upload my materials to one of his servers, which will then be automatically placed in a web site, complete with text descriptions, thumbnails and the corresponding links to download each and every file. In short, eventually all my calc materials will be available on a permanent basis in some pretty stable server of his, for everyone interested to be able to download them for free, and so I'm including the link to the main page here and also in my signature, to act as a permanent reminder of their location.

As a first, initial batch, I've already uploaded the following materials in the specified sections and subsections (descriptions for each section are included in their respective pages) :

      HP Calculators

            HP Calculator Articles                  32 articles (32 files)
            HP Calculator Programs                  10 programs (10 files)

            HP Calculator Challenges

                  Short & Sweet Math Challenges     24 S&SMC (31 files)
                  Mini-Challenges                   40 Mini-C (40 files)
                  Semi-Regular Columns               5 SRC (10 files)

            HP Calculator Pictures                  23 pictures (23 files)
            HP Calculator Selected Threads          51 threads (51 files)

      Sharp Pocket Computers

            Sharp Programs                           6 programs (6 files)
            Sharp Pictures                          15 pictures (15 files)
            Sharp Selected Threads                   2 threads (2 files)

      Other Brands

            Other Pictures                           1 picture (1 file )

      Assorted Miscellaneous

            Miscellaneous Pictures

                  Tutorial images                   26 pictures (26 files)
                  Sample Videos                      5 videos (5 files)
                  Image Gallery                     70 pictures (70 files)
                  The Icing of the Cake              2 pictures (2 files)

                        Total:      221 Calc + 103 Misc = 324 files

Some notes:

• All documents are in PDF format and all images are in JPG format.
• Currently these are the only types of files in the site, in particular there aren't any executables of any kind.
• The site itself is plain-vanilla HTML and doesn't include Javascript or any type of scripting or fancy tricks, just text, thumbnails and links to download.
• And of course, everything's free and no adds or nuisances of any kind whatsoever, it's as simple as it gets.
• This is a work in progress and I intend to upload additional materials once per week (available time permitting) and will timely announce each update here.

Both the current (and future) contents (will) include already published/released materials, carefully compiled here for utmost convenience and completeness, but also materials which have never been published or released, including already existing ones as well as any new ones I've recently created or will create in the near future.

I've been searching my many boxes of old materials at home (some stored undisturbed for 40 years) and I'm finding lots and lots of old but (IMHO) very interesting materials aplenty, so this first batch is to be followed by a number of them. The materials I plan to upload to the site include the following:

• Many (more than 300) old but very interesting, quite complex programs for such calcs as the HP-25, HP-34C (two whole Solution Books and more), HP-35S, all Voyagers, HP-67/97, HP-41C, HP-42S, HP-71B, SHARP PC-1211, SHARP PC-1350/1360 and compatibles, and for old computers as well (ZX-81 both in Sinclair BASIC and Z80 Assembler, etc, HP85, HP-86/87, HP-9816/26/36, HP-150, HP Vectra, etc.). The vast majority have never been published or made available before in any way.
   
• Many (100+) good quality photographs of assorted calcs from my collection, both HP and non-HP including somewhat rare models. Ditto, most pics never seen before. All include full descriptions and even anecdotical data where appropriate.
   
• Scans of the many calculator (and old computers) brochures I have in my collection, most of them in perfect shape, some of them quite rare, the majority are in English, a minority in Spanish, and one or two in French (!). These include RPN "educational" brochures, "educational" tutorials for HP financial models, many HP calcs form the HP-35 to the HP-71B, some SHARP models, the HP-85 family, Sinclair ZX81, etc.
   
• Raw scans of my old paper notebooks of 40+ years ago, from the time I acquired my first calculator onwards, page by page. Most of these are handwritten (clear, legible caligraphy) and in Spanish, but the (mostly mathematical) program listings, register contents, program status, formulas and many worked examples can be easily understood and used by non-Spanish speakers. This will be a reasonable way to have these materials available online, just in case, while I go on about translating them from physical paper handwritten Spanish to digital PDF typewritten English (possibly with the help of others).
   
• Lots of assorted additional documentation, scans, math-related articles (hand-made symbolic math), etc. Ditto.
   
• Additional selected MoHP threads in PDF format which include posts either by me or about my materials (e.g.: vintage threads discussing and analyzing the results when dealing with my tough AM matrices, etc). These are already available in the MoHP Archives but this compilation in one place will save tons and tons of searching efforts, they are in convenient PDF format which can be read without being connected to the Internet, plus they're carefully selected for interest and lasting value.
   
• and last but not least ... I'll upload all the articles (about a dozen) I wrote in 2007 intended for due publication in some fan magazine but that I never submitted after my subscription expired. They're very good quality and truly deserve to see the light (one of the best was specifically written to commemorate my 50th birthday but most regrettably to a drawer it went).

Of course, any new articles or materials I might create in the near or distant future will be uploaded as well, and I have tons of those in various states of completion. I could mention a few of the very best, even revolutionary, but I don't want to spoil the surprises !

At any rate, uploading this many materials will take a lot of effort and thus a lot of time, since the quota of free time I can allocate to this is sure to take its toll. This is work for years to come.

Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoy the site, and best regards. Have a nice weekend.

V.
 
(Oh, I almost forgot, the link ! ... )

Valentin Albillo's HP Collection