HP-35s New Moon Lander behavior

[mfleming]

(04-30-2019 02:21 PM)burkhard Wrote:  There needs to be a means to roll out corrections during the product life cycle. You shouldn't continue to put out flawed product for years (this model entered production in 2007 and they are still making it with the same bugs!) when you know how to fix it.

First, I'm entirely sympathetic to your point of view. A little history is in order though. In the early aughts following the Tech Crash, companies were laying off entire divisions and sending their jobs overseas to LCR's (Low Cost Regions). This transfer was driven by a cut-costs-or-die imperative, as many companies teetered on extinction. No one really had much experience outsourcing at such a scale, and an enormous number of mistakes were made. I managed to avoid getting laid off myself until early 2006, so I saw a lot of projects go bust and a number of responsible managers getting their heads handed to them as a result.

I'm therefore not surprised at this failure, nor that management at the time made the decision that they could live with the defects in order to generate the revenue needed to recoup investment. The company formerly known as Hewlett Packard was undergoing a good deal of acquisition and divestment during this period, and much of the old guard were being shown the door as company culture was rewritten to support the new business focus.

Personally, I'm happy the calculator division, small as it is today, still exists and still produces in-house content. It could all too easily have gone differently...

~Mark