The X-Philes (2nd Revision)/The X-Philes Number 1 (1995).iso/xphiles/hp48hor2/whybuy48.doc

Text File | 1995-03-31 | 6KB | 142 lines

[Note: Rick Homard started a thought-provoking discussion on HPCVBBS
 by asking the quesion: Why did YOU buy your HP 48?  Among the
 excellent responses were these two gems.  -jkh-]

(Comp.sys.hp48)
Item: 352 by [e-mail]
Author: [Rick Homard]
  Subj: Why did you buy the HP48?
  Date: Mon Dec 09 1991 14:55

----------
  Resp: 9 by [e-mail]
Author: [Kevin Jessup]
  Date: Wed Dec 11 1991

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rick
Homard) writes:

>I'm curious as to the reasons why some people purchased the HP48.
>What was so alluring about this machine that you spent so much?

Since you asked, I'll write a book!

I am a full-time software engineer (previously I did both analog and
digital hardware design) and now, other than for appointment alarms
and binary/octal/hex/decimal conversions, I have abosultely no use for
the thing!

But...

I am continually fascinated by newer, faster, smaller and more
feature-laden portable computing devices.  I started with an HP55,
then a 41 and now the 48SX.  This thing is a hacker's dream!  I don't
just want another BOSS or other personal information manager (PIM), I
want something that does all that plus does all the math and graphing
I could possibly want.  I want a PIM, a super calculator, graphics, a
structured user programming language, the option to make the thing
scream via assembly language as well as easy file sharing with an
intelligent user community.  The 48 is the only truly portable machine
that does all that!

Yes, it costs lots!  The price you pay for the cutting-edge.  I will
continue to buy the latest handheld gadgets until I run out of money
or they stop making them.  (Or until my wife's attorney calls?)  The
future of these devices is only limited by one's imagination.  Let me
dream a bit here...

I want a hand-held (yes, hand-held, not palmtop or laptop) with a
higher resolution color LCD, internal 9600 baud modem, and, hell, why
not ISDN?  Let's add an internal cellular phone too!  I want real-time
on-line radar images from the national weather service!  I want the
latest stock-market info!  Heck, I want to actually perform a stock
transaction on the thing!  I want a plug-in rom card with 16-bits per
channel stereo of the complete works of J.S Bach!  I want digital
audio!  I want HDTV!  I want to communicate, calculate, work, hack and
play!  I want a Next machine in my hand! But, I still want 1-button
access to the basic math functions.  All pretty far-fetched?  For now,
anyway.  But just wait!

That's why I bought the 48!  The best combination of power and
features you can fit in a single hand!

--
It is time that the term "software engineering" cease being an oxymoron.
If it must remain an art, at least let's stop finger painting!
        -- Kevin Jessup, [e-mail]

----------
  Resp: 16 by [e-mail]
Author: [Ray Depew]
  Date: Thu Dec 19 1991 01:03
 Lines: 66

Well, I bought my 41 (no, not the 48) to replace my TI-30.

I was an undergrad in ChemE, and so poor that the only programmable
calculator I had access to was an HP9810 that the dept. owned -- and no,
it doesn't fit in your pocket.  There was usually a big queue of other
poor students waiting to use it, so I did most of my work on a
non-programmable TI-30.

Can you imagine doing Newton-Raphson iterations or Runge-Kutta on a
non-programmable?  How about tray-tower or packed-tower designs?  My
fingernails wore grooves in the ON/C and = keys.  My hand was so well-
programmed that I didn't have to look at the keys while I typed:  I knew
right where everything was.

All my rich friends had TI-59s, and one married guy whose father-in-law
was paying for EVERYTHING had an HP-67.  I just kept plugging along on my
TI-30 until Christmas of 1980, when HP dropped the price on the original
41 to $199, in anticipation of the release of the 41CV.

I talked my dad into loaning me the money, and I bought a 41 during Christmas
break.  I started at the front cover of the owners manual and came up for
air two days later, at the back cover.  I figured I was a "real expert" by
then.

Having the 41 for Reaction Kinetics and for Plant Design probably saved me
hundreds of hours of punching keys.  I was convinced that the 41 was the
Ultimate Calculator.

When the 41CX came out, HP bought one for me.  I dressed it up with an
XMemory Module, Thermal ROM, Advantage ROM and Zenrom (remove one of these
to plug in HP-IL or IR Printer module).  Thus armed, I admired but passed
up the 15, the 28C/S, the 32 and all the other cool toys HP introduced.
I got a 42S, thinking that it was the next logical step from the 41 (well,
it should have been...) but then I saw a prototype 48 and knew I'd have
one someday.

I used to think my dressed-up 41 was good.  (You're right, it still is.  So's
a '56 Chevy.)  I took all my important programs from the 41 and rewrote them
for the 48 (many using algebraics, matrices and lists instead of programs
and XMemory) and have never looked back.  I still use the 48 every day, both
here and at home.  With the serial cable, it's practically a peripheral to my
computers.

The most fun I have on the 48 is fiddling with the graphics (er, the user
interface) and trying to make it do things it's not supposed to be able to
do.

I firmly believe that an engineer can do the most effective job when s/he
has the most powerful tools available at his/her disposal, within bounds
of economy and good sense.  I don't know of a single handheld computation
device that gives you this much power in a package like this.  I know of
several that come close, but they all have limitations when compared to the
48.

The 41 series was king of the mountain for ten years.  I'd like to see the
48 series reign for at least that long.


Regards
Ray Depew
Hewlett Packard Co, Fort Collins, Colorado
[e-mail]

The usual disclaimer:  I don't make 'em, I just use 'em and like 'em.

-- Oh yeah, and I wrote something about 'em once.

[Namely: Grapevine's "HP 48 Graphics" by Ray Depew.  -jkh-]