15th January 1972 – Hewlett-Packard Introduces the HP-35 | Hacker News Reader

15th January 1972 – Hewlett-Packard Introduces the HP-35

computinghistory.org.uk

30 pointsrbanffy9 comments

Incidentally, I still consider my HP-50G the best calculator ever made. I bought two physical units and I use the Emu50G app on my iOS devices (which sadly seems to be no longer developed, I might have to pick it up one day).

I think we are losing the art of calculating things quickly. There are many calculators, but they seem to be designed for either accountants or students. And no, tools like the python REPL, wolfram alpha, or siri/alexa do not replace an engineering calculator. I also find the emphasis on "graphing" bizarre: for graphing, a computer is always going to be better and more convenient.

HP had a great team that designed calculators that made just the right compromises. There were some better ones (the real game-changers were HP-25, HP-35, HP-42, HP-48 and the financial HP-12) and some not-so-goot ones, but they iterated and in the process managed to produce a number of great tools. Sadly, that team is gone, and the company seems to be no longer interested in designing calculators.

I guess I will hold on to my HP-50G and some day take over the maintenance of Emu50G, if I need to. I find a good engineering calculator much too useful of a tool to just abandon it just because it went out of fashion.

Have you seen the Swiss Micros calculators? https://www.swissmicros.com/index.php

Yes, but the HP-42 is mostly valuable for nostalgic value, later models were significantly enhanced. As an example, unit conversions (basically, convert between every unit known to man) is something I use every day. It takes about 6 keystrokes to convert from anything to pretty much anything on a HP-50G.

"And no, tools like the python REPL, wolfram alpha, or siri/alexa do not replace an engineering calculator"

Honest question, why is that? I left my calculator in high school and almost exclusively use wolfram alpha / the python REPL, depending on the task - but I also don't do much engineering.

Because you can't use these tools on many occasions, they don't always do exactly what you want, and accessing them is slower than using a calculator.

The devil is in the details. Such as being able to quickly switch to engineering notation to display values applicable in electronics.

Also, I often want to do a series of calculations, for which an RPN calculator with a stack (you can see the top 7 levels) is uniquely suited.

This detailed history of the HP-35 is a must read: http://codex99.com/design/the-hp35.html

According to the inflation calculator, https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm the $395 list price in January 1972 is equivalent to over $2400 now.

More details, from the same site, on http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/12274/Hewlett-Packard...

> Thus, the first 12 HP-35 portable calculators were made as a "hack" by and for other engineers at HP. It is rumored that the development engineer got carried away and implemented a full suite of scientific functions to satisfy requests from his co-workers. When these prototypes proved popular, HP decided to turn the HP-35 into a commercial product. The HP-35 was the first calculator with a full suite of trigonometric and transcendental functions.

This appears to be a summery based on the link above (http://codex99.com/design/the-hp35.html) but I think it's misinterpreted. The original states

> Eventually Hewlett, despite the SRI report, decided he wanted one and thought his engineers should have one as well. On February 2nd, 1971—Groundhog Day—he gave the official go-ahead.

The fact that he had a personal desire does not imply that it was "a hack" or anything less that a full commercial product from the start and there's no evidence to the contrary.

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