HP-01 wrist instrument, 1977 | Hacker News Reader

HP-01 wrist instrument, 1977

hp.com

73 pointsdenzil_correa21 comments

HP-01 was code named "Cricket". I found out some answers but I still don't quite get what it meant by "all of Cricket's technology". Are they referring to the insect Cricket? What technology are they talking about?

> From the minutes of a product planning meeting: "A suggestion was made to put all of Cricket's technology into an elegant, truly pocket size calculator selling for around $250. It would have an LED readout, 10 keys, 2 ROMS, timing functions and do about '40 things'. The appearance of the package would do justice to the selling price. This suggestion prompted an immediate lack of enthusiam [sic] and was seconded by no one thus inhibiting further serious discussion." This was a suggestion to "save" Cricket (HP-01) which was highly controversial. The meeting recap/action item related to Cricket was: "Pray for Cricket."

http://www.hpmuseum.org/collect.htm#codes

As the original article mentioned, they spent a lot of resources miniaturizing the math circuits for the relatively unsuccessful Cricket watch. This is talking about their idea to "save Cricket" and get some more value out of the work they put in by transplanting all of the internals of the watch into a separate pocket calculator product which might be more successful than the watch.

They were big, heavy, and needed batteries too often. Expensive, too. They are retro-chic now, though. A good specimen will cost you north of $1K.

Now why would they destroy something to keep others from copying it? That is plain dumbassery.

Particularly destroying the workings of an unsuccessful product line, where others could have learned and progressed the design. But it was the 70's and sharing of knowledge has changed significantly since then.

This is a reminder to me that it doesn't matter how great your idea is, or how technically impressive your product is. If the execution isn't right (in this case, who wants to do math awkwardly on their wrist with a tiny, hard to hold stylus? A calculator is much more comfortable) nobody will buy your product.

Actually the Casio versions of such watches were quite cool among us back in the 80's.

I loved mine. My uncle gave the best presents! When you're in third grade, at least, nothing makes you feel cooler than a calculator watch.

Quite true. I only managed to get one already in high school.

I had a Casio calculator watch that also included a video game for the ultimate in nerd entertainment. From what I remember, it consisted of scrolling numbers that you had to enter before they reached the edge of the screen, like in a typing tutor.

What I liked most about my watch was that it included many different alarm tones. I must have driven my parents crazy with those beeps.

The HP-01 is the one and only watch I would ever wear. Sure it's big and clunky but it's so freaking cool, in a nerdy way. The $1k+ price tag is the only thing that has detered me. This is the ultimate gift for the nerd who has everything.

I wonder if it could do RPN...

This comment may not have much meat to it, but HP was famous for their excellent graphing calculators, which used RPN input format. They were fun to program as well and started many a young nerd of the 90's on the path to making software.

Stack arithmetic is best arithmetic.

HP's use of RPN actually predated their graphing calculators by quite a bit starting with, in pocket calculators, the HP-35 in the mid-1970s. (Apparently it was used in desktop calculators prior to that.) I've used RPN since I got an HP-55 and still use an RPN calculator app (emulating an HP-41) on my iPhone.

I used to dream about the HP 48GX, but my budget only allowed for a Casio FX-880P.

The days when a 32KB upgrade module costed what would be now around 100 euros.

Wow, times change, now you can get a 1MB card for that kind of money!

The calculator market really hasn't scaled in price like the rest of the general purpose computing world... pretty amazing that the exact same TI-83 and HP48's used ten years ago are still selling for nearly the same prices they were then.

Unfortunately it was algebraic. Another sought after calculator watch is the Casio scientific watch CFX-400.

The only RPN calculator watch I'm aware of is the uWatch which is out of production apparently http://www.calcwatch.com/.

Looks like the apple watch!

...and it runs NetBSD.

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