Most underrated programmables

[rprosperi]

(02-07-2015 06:49 AM)Gerald H Wrote:  I also agree on the uselessness of the HP 38G & all it's descendents.

I personally agree that the 38G and its followers are certainly not for me, but since it wasn't intended for me (Engineer, age/not a student, RPN background, etc.) this really doesn't come as a surprise.

What was a surprise, for me, is the very clear and obvious evolution these machines went through culminating in the Prime.

When I got my Prime, like many of you here, I was utterly confused about where such a design had come from; surely not from the stables that had produced so many thoroughbreds that I knew, loved and owned!

So I started researching it's ancestry... first with the 39gii - which is instantly recognizable as Prime's close ancestor, even if one doesn't know how to use much of it.

And so the research continued... back to the HP-38G. Exploring the specs and capabilities of these models reveals a very clear evolution into what ultimately became the Prime. Core concepts, new to most of us in the Prime, such as Home mode, Apps, Symbolic/Plot/Numeric views, etc. go all the way back to the 38G.

From here, today, this line appears (to me) to have been heavily influenced by TI and it's market dominance in eduction, but as I didn't "live through" that market segment and these machines as they emerged, I could well be totally wrong. But even if true, this makes sense since they were targetting the same customers, with strong influencers (teachers) educated in using those machines.

We agree, not for you or me, or even the vast majority of members here, but it's hard for me to conclude useless.