Thread: Patent updates
View Single Post
  #75  
Old November 13th 19, 08:45 AM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 824
Default Patent updates

On Wednesday, November 13, 2019 at 4:21:44 AM UTC+1, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 11/12/2019 6:50 PM, news18 wrote:
On Tue, 12 Nov 2019 12:03:40 -0500, Frank Krygowski wrote:

On 11/12/2019 2:34 AM, wrote:


You're a wise man of excellent taste, Frank. We have the same slide
rule of the same age, Never needs batteries and no one ever 'borrows'
it.

--
Andrew Muzi
www.yellowjersey.org/
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

I still have a slide ruler somewhere for nostalgic reasons but I
(still) use fountain pens to write and I have a HP '2.5 ENTER 3 x'
calculator (hp11c) for 35 years. These also never get 'borrowed'.

I wish I had my 11C. It disappeared, along with my briefcase, when I was
doing some work at a local company. We suspected the temporary employee
of a cleaning company.

Sad thing is, the guy would never get any use out of it. He wouldn't
figure out the RPN.

The company bought me an HP 32SII as a replacement, but I don't like it
as well as the 11C. It matters little, I suppose. I mostly use an HP-48
these days.


25c, 18c and now 48G which resides in the top desktop draw and the others
in the garage.


The Wiki article on RPN reminds me that my first calculator used RPN,
but was not an HP. It was a Sinclair (IIRC), a very rare bird, at least
in the U.S.

It got the job done for years, but eventually developed a stuttering
keypad. Pressing 8 might yield 888. For a while I affected temporary
cures by disassembling it, cleaning key contacts and smearing them with
petroleum jelly to slow corrosion. When I tired of that I bought the HP
11C. Wherever it ended up after being stolen, it probably still works
perfectly.

Incidentally, this may be of interest to fans of old HPs:
https://www.swissmicros.com/index.php


--
- Frank Krygowski


Besides RPN, the design of the keys (pad) of the (old?) HP calculators is another excellent feature. They are extremely robust and durable and have a nice tactile feedback. I hate those wobbly keys of most of the other calculators.

Lou
Ads
 

Home - Home - Home - Home - Home