I owned a 55 for about a couple of weeks. It must have been 1976, but might have been 1975. The timer was cool. Probably bought from an advertisement in Scientific American. The next issue had a much less expensive programmable, maybe the HP-25c? that I used as an undergraduate. I ran many X-Ray diffraction calculations on that programmable my senior year!
Any and all of the Spice series, in which they tried not soldering in the components. I went through three returns before the 15c came out, and I bought one of those. That one I still have.
Great Work. Thanks a lot. I used it already sometimes and admitted the detailed work! Anyway: For good looking formulas and spacing (kerning), why not using LaTeX? Things like parenthesis in f(t)=h(t)-107 would be consistent anyway. I hoped to find the LaTeX sources somewhere...
Thank you so much Walter for the manual. It is brillant. I read it to familiarize with my C47 (on DM 42) and even if it is not a 100% fit to the WP34 it is still extremely useful and a pleasue to read and work through.
I loved my 48SX but it suffered from the keyboard separation and didn't survive my attempt to disassemble it - I did not know about the repairability-hostile design at the time. I later received a 50G as a father's day gift, never experiencing the keys of the 49 series, and although I now appreciate the keys and higher contrast display, on the 50G the key layout deserves the hatred it received. I don't know if someone at HP was trying to mimic TI or Kinpo was just following what they do for TI but it was a awful. The Prime fixes the layout but then returns to awful keys, a horrid color scheme, and a completely broken RPN implementation. Given their abysmal printer division, I'm going to quote David Bowie in saying they're dead, they just ain't buried yet.
Fantastic repair! I have a Facit 1125 that I really want to repair. I still need to spend some time on it, but maybe I can also contact mr Hilpert for some advice. Pieter
I'd want a serial port on it, and then a GPIO, as high as speed as possible. That way we could use it as a modest piece of test equipment, or for little projects.
In repsonse to Mr. Abram's statements in ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5CYr9qwXpJM.htmlsi=4K6JhOH0TA3F8xz_&t=1593 : In Texas public schools, UIL and, to an extent TMSCA function as organizers for some of the largest STEM academic competitions. One of the big events is Calculator Applications (HP calculators used to be the predominant brand). Over time, fewer students know about HP calculators, and finding replacements is getting harder and more expensive. We can find a way to integrate the prime with the lab sensor suites from Vernier/Pasco/Labview (for the college environment) for use in labs. If the sensors could connect wirelessly, that would be even better, and if they could transmit data to a computer and/or their phone (let's say the class is ending and they won't be able to save their data to a computer) as well to be imported in excel or similar fashion. If you'd like to talk to some coaches (or their former champs) from across the state, I am sure they would love to provide input. Not to dox, but some of the Landry/Belichicks of the Calculator world: Todd Steckler (La Joya), Don Kirby (Galena Park Northshore), Fabian Quintana(Pharr-San Juan-Alamo), Juan Esparza(Sharyland), Alvaro Leal(Pharr-San Juan-Alamo), Oscar Santos(Pharr-San Juan-Alamo), Cliff McCurdy (Argyl and UIL Math Test Writer/Director), Andy Zapata, Peter Fuentes, Ezequiel Alaniz(Edinburg Math Specialist & 5 time State Champ), David Bourell (Calculator Test Writer/Director) and many more. I have had the pleasure of working and competing alongside these individuals who tried to squeeze every bit out of the calculators. Lastly, a big shoutout to the South Texas region, constantly being one of the most competitive regions in this event! Thank you for taking the time to read this. www.uiltexas.org/academics/stem/calculator-applications
I don't agree with the 39GII being bad. I own one and it's a good calculator, it's durable (as opposed to some other models), the features are great, it was cheap enough for what it provided, it's still relevant today, the keyboard was decent (not very good, but decent), the display would have been great (resolution, grayscale levels) if it did not have this pretty poor viewing angle... (so, a bad-ish point here). I understand that, being a 100% algebraic calc, it's probably seen as the devil by HP calcs afficionados (and I've owned a HP28S and a HP48G+...), but as far as being a dead-end, no, it's a direct predecessor of the HP Prime, introducing the same programming language, many of the base functions, and even the general look (although for sure the Prime looks a lot more premium.) So, just a thought. Maybe an oddball somewhat in terms of being "HP", but still a good calc that deserved better than it got IMHO.
When the bug with the wrong date format may be solved, or: How I may correct this by myself? The date format is shown as DD/MM/YYYY, but there is no use of this ,,because this is wrong. Correct date format would be DD.MM.YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY or YYYY-MM-DD only. May I exchange the „/„ slash against then „.“ dot somehow with a debugger? Thanks.
I have a Unisonic 1040-1 "GPM" sitting right here in front of me in mint condition. Add Taiwan to your list of manufacturing sites, "MADE IN TAIWAN" is molded into the case. My first exposure to this calculator is doing repairs for friends and giving it back to them. Usually keyboard issues. Too much money for me at the time. When I saw this one for sale a few years ago, I scooped it up! Repurchasing calculators I one had or once fixed back such memories.
Today, an excellent HP-42S emulator is available for Android phones. And HP 12C emulators too. In 2024, there is no reason to buy or use HP calculator hardware anymore. It's all on the smartphone now.
Great summary. Bought my HP41C in 1980. Only recently learned about SwissMicro DMX41. Received my DMx41 TODAY (Jan2). Need help with PC connection - no indication that I am connected- the DM41X does not show up as an external drive on the PC. What am I missing?
I can't believe I sat through both parts of that :) Here's the skinny from someone in physics who needed a powerful calculator. I needed two things most of all - intrinsic complex functions and decent matrix operations. ALL devices other than the HP-71B were useless for this. ALL of them. I wrote a matrix inversion program for the HP-41C that was (necessarily) so compacted by elimination of common sequences that I could not read my own code a year later. My HP-71B was loaded up with everything I needed and stayed that way for years. The ONLY contemporary device that wasn't a toy.
As an emulator the HP-49G probably worked better than the real calculator. There were two emulators go48g was put out by DeSmet but from Android 4.4 to Android 10 only work for the owner user. It ran for a non-owner but lost its memory when terminated. DeSmet never fixed this bug except for his Go49G emulator which emulated the hp49g+ or the HP50g. The go49g app is a true emulator of the HP49G and takes libraries and apps for the 49G. The other choice is Emu48 which has a somewhat too real image of the HP49G. It however uses an HP50g ROM (ROM 2.10). This works but HP50g libraries must be used with it. Most 49/50 libraries work on all machines but there are exceptions. Another utility for the hp49 family is the pfree viewer from the flashtoools 1.0 package. (hpcalc.org) This works on all hp49s with flash bank ports (If they have a Port2). It is particularly useful for hp49s generated from Emu48 because Port2 contains objects marked for deletion. There are several versions of extable and other goodies. To get these out highlight them using pfree and then press STO. The pfree viewer quits with the desired object on the stack.
The SR-56 was my calculator as a freshman at Ga. Tech (Physics). It was very reliable and had relatively good battery life in the NiCd pack - no expendable option. The programming I found very easy and it was an enormous lifesaver when doing repetitive calculations such as converting astronomical coordinates for precession, days between dates etc. The lack of continuous memory was the main shortcoming. Once I had the HP-41C the SR-56 was just loaded up and left on all the time. The 56 was in fact more accurate than the HP-25 and it wasn't even close. I regarded the 25C's programming capability as barely above novelty/toy level usefulness. The pause feature was very good for doing series approximations by setting up an infinite loop and checking the convergence periodically. In short, the SR-56 was extremely useful and very robust and I certainly got more than my money's worth. I didn't own another TI until 2001 when I picked up a TI-92+. The 58 and 59 were in every way inferior to the HP-41C and not nearly as competitive as the SR-56 despite their greater sophistication.
Thank you for all the efforts on this manual. Got my CE a few days ago. The whole thing exudes quality and fine workmanship - as does the manual. Fantastic job!
