The HP-37s scientific calculator?

[Steve Simpkin]

(12-31-2020 09:16 PM)trojdor Wrote:  Hello Max, and Happy New Year!
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I wholeheartedly agree that whatever HP might do, it should be useful for a Professional Engineer to use daily at their job....
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mike

That's the million dollar question. Is there still a sizable market for calculators for engineers and scientists?

For engineering (and probably science) applications I don't think that "calculations" are now being done very often using physical calculators. In my personal experience, manual "calculations" of any kind are just not needed as often. When I started as an electrical engineer in the early 80's I had to manually calculate the value of almost every resistor, capacitor and inductor in the analog circuitry I designed. Even with digital circuits I had to calculate many, many timing related values. I did these calculations manually well into the 90's using a series of ever more powerful HP calculators. Over time my need for manual calculations gradually decreased. Specialized computer aided design software, spreadsheets and the "typical" application schematics contained in device datasheets all but eliminated the need to manually calculate the values of anything using a calculator. In my opinion, these changes in the engineering profession and the newer tools that have evolved have mostly eliminated the need for a physical calculator in this role. For myself, I will still go out of my way to find an excuse to use my HP-48SX to do a quick calculation but I can't imagine someone younger who only used a calculator as required during class and tests needing to use one as an engineering tool today.

Even if there is a small market for "engineering" calculators, is it big enough for HP and other manufactures to pursue making specific calculators for that market? Can't that relatively small need (if it indeed exists at all) be filled by using existing scientific and graphical calculators that are already produced for the education market?