Posted on 06/08/2009 6:54:44 PM PDT by mamelukesabre
My HP-48SX ceased functioning about 5 years ago and i still miss it. I recently got the bug to go out and replace it with something. I saw an HP-50 on sale today for about 60 bucks. I bought the 48-SX when they first came out(circa 1989?) for A LOT OF MONEY. I forget the exact amount, but it was either $199.99 or $299.99. I think it was the latter.
The only thing wrong with my 48 is the on/off button. I know this because the problem started out minor and gradually got worse. I used to be able to turn it on and off by pressing extra hard on the button. All the other buttons worked fine. Then little by little it(the on/off button) quit working completely.
I saved the calculator in hopes that I would find a way to fix it. I've tried spraying electrical contact cleaner into the keyboard and nothing works.
I was totally lost without that calculator for a long time after it quit functioning. I had an extra fat wallet for it that doubled as my checkbook. I never went anywhere without it.
This was before I had a cellphone and I'm pretty sure it was before anyone had a PDA. I turned my HP into a primitive PDA. It didn't have a touch screen or internet connection, obviously. But I had files in it with all kinds of personal info and my entire personal phonebook in it. There was lots of old stuff from college in there too.
I was still using payphones extensively back then...along with an answering machine at home that I could call up from a payphone to check my messages.
Since I got a cellphone, the HP became a little less important. I guess that's why I never replaced it. A buddy of mine told me he could program my HP to make the sounds of the phone numbers being dialed so I could hold the calculator up to the receiver of the pay phone and just let it dial like that automatically. He never did get around to doing that for me though...and so I never got to test it to see if it would work. It seems like it shoulda worked though. But I didn't know how to do it myself efficiently without redoing my entire phonebook. I wanted a program that would take a pre-existing stored number and convert it into the sounds required to dial a number. That was a little over my head.
Even to this day, sometimes when I pick up a simple handheld calculator and start punching in numbers real fast I accidentally revert back to RPN and have to start all over. IT REALLY SUCKS! And it's been 5 years since I've ever touched anything that uses RPN!
“I think in RPN.”
Exactly. When my kids ask me how I can do mental calculations so quickly, I tell them that I keep a mental stack. And understanding how to use the distributive property helps...
VAX
That’s a memory covered in cobwebs.
Now even people that know RPN can’t use my calculator. They don’t know the ‘secret’ button.
That’s quite funny.
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “Where’s the equals sign?”
Music to my ears.
I’ve still got my HP-41CV, and still use it...
Mark
"That's 'cause HP HAS no equal!"
Or so I've been told.
No kidding.
VAX-11 C Language... now there was a prize to behold. ;-)
The other big program I wrote for portability back then was a screen text editor. I fell in love with VAX EDT, and took the sources for MicroEmacs and hacked them into a semblance of EDT (called it "EDTmacs") which I ported to the PC, Macintosh, Unix (Sys5 and BSD), etc., and which stayed with me into the late 90's.
The 11/780 was one hell of a machine for its time.
> Exactly. When my kids ask me how I can do mental calculations so quickly, I tell them that I keep a mental stack. And understanding how to use the distributive property helps...
I taught my daughter RPN when she was very small and just learning arithmetic. I told her it was an alternate way to do things, and that she should feel free to use it when appropriate as long as she also learned the algebraic method used in school.
When she learned a few years later that I'd written a program for the personal computers that implemented RPN, she demanded a copy for each of her machines (at that time, Linux, Windows, and a Mac). I was charmed...
You just made me dig out my old VAX handbook.
it looked similar to dos but with lots of dollar signs everywhere.
Before the internet, windows, color monitors, and laptop computers were prevalent, I used to turn in homework via VAX and a dial up modem...to certain professors. I was still typing up everything on an old fashioned typwriter first, then redoing it on a computer for certain professors that wouldn’t accept typwriter written pages anymore. I might’ve been the last person in the engineering college to do this. I couldn’t help it. My brain just did not want to move over to wordprocessors for the longest time. It took me forever to be able to type fast while watching the words appear on a monitor. Part of my problem was that I was a very fast typist and I could type a paper twice faster than most could type it once.
Yep. And the reason for that was...
In The Beginning (around 1970) there was DEC RT-11. This was the operating system whose command structure and syntax are seen even today in the latest versions of Microsoft Windows' standard commandline (CMD.EXE).
RT-11 was the inspiration for CP/M. CP/M begat CP/M-86. CP/M-86 was the model for Q-DOS (Seattle Computer's "Quick-n-Dirty Operating System"). Q-DOS was bought by Bill Gates, who crossed out "Q-DOS" and wrote "MS-DOS" in crayon, and then went on to make boodles of bucks selling it on IBM-PCs.
Meanwhile, DEC RT-11 begat RSX-11, which begat VAX/VMS. The DEC CLI (Command Line Interpreter) was remarkably similar throughout all that.
Trivia: The reason that DOS and Windows use '\' as their directory separator, instead of '/' like the Xenix (Unix) that Microsoft was selling for a while, is that MS-DOS already was using '/' as the option (switch) character.
So where Unix used '/' for paths and '-' for switches, DOS used '\' for paths and maintained '/' for switches.
The DOS '/' for switches was from Q-DOS, which was from CP/M-86, which was from CP/M, which was from RT-11.
So -that's- why VAX looks similar to DOS.
The dollar signs are a DEC-ism of long-standing, but I don't know their provenance except that they've been around forever...
In The Beginning (around 1970) there was DEC RT-11.
Pfft. RT-11 is a cheap knockoff of OS/8.
> Pfft. RT-11 is a cheap knockoff of OS/8.
Which in turn was a knock-off of TOPS-10.... ;-)
This thread probably warrants a Geezer Geek ping, what say?
My father, an electrical engineer, was never without his HP-45. This was the first calculator I remember really using, except for a 10 key with paper tape. And he always joked about reverse polish notation. Memories.
Hey! I’m looking for some of those! Great orange peelers.
That’s what my husband used in college until he got his first HP. In fact in our office he had a 48” one hanging on his wall for solving really big problems...
Geezer Geek ping.
This is a very low-volume ping list (typically days to weeks between pings).
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this list.
Take it to a jewelry store and have the on-off switch contacts gold plated.
I still have my HP-45...
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