Seeking a timeline of feature introductions by HP

[Vincent Weber]

(06-17-2020 01:15 PM)Didier Lachieze Wrote:  First Forth could be the Panasonic HHC with the SnapFORTH ROM (1982).

(06-17-2020 10:48 AM)Vincent Weber Wrote:  First with alphanumerics could be the HP-41C (July 1979) but also the Sharp EL-5100 (1979, I could never find out with month).

The Sharp EL-5100 was announced in June 1979, one month before the 41C, according to Electronic Design.
But before the Sharp EL-5100 there was in 1978 the Sharp PC-1300 with a beautiful Alphanumeric VFD display, magnetic cards and an integrated printer. It was followed in 1979 by the Sharp PC-1300S, an almost identical model with more memory (42 memory registers instead of 26 and 640 steps of program memory instead of 256).

The soft keys origin can be found on the Sharp EL-5001 in 1977 with the top key functions being selected by a rotary switch between 6 function sets.

In the 70's and 80's Sharp brought a lot of innovations in the calculator and pocket computer area with also a lot of firsts.

Thanks for the info about the EL-5100.
About the PC-1300(S), yes it is a beautiful machine, but the topic was pocket machines, and this one doesn't fit in any pocket By this standard, we could say that the first programmable calculator is not the legendary HP-65, but the Compucorp 324G, from 1972, programmable but not pocketable