We always come back to our old loves :-)). HP's first computer with a CAS, computer algebraic system. When I first saw this calculator, I saw that it was a revolution in pocket calculators. Thanks for your video !
I still have my HP 48sx from '92. Have the HP Prime G2 also. The 48sx is incredible though! Slow, but just so powerful! Other than the speed, it's perfect. I agree that they made them so well back then! Ahead of their time. I'm scouting around for a 48gx and 50g to add to my collection. I wish I knew the power off my 48sx back in the day, as I do now. 👍
I had an 28s but for a short period of time. I sold it and got an 48sx (still have). Back then, my mind exploded on how resourceful it was. Great times were I spend almost every spare moment reading the spiral-bind manual and trying to solve everything with it :) Nowadays, my sons don't even care or have any interest on calculators (and I collected a few over the years) but it's the natural way, I guess.
@@mariocosta6968 There are definitely more distractions for the younger generation. I was not quite as dedicated to learning my machine as it sounds like you were, but I definitely loved it. Thanks for sharing your story. I'm happy to hear that you still have your 48sx. Take care, Mario.
Loved this calculator. Last year of grad school, out in the boonies of northern Canada, I lost access to a PC I used to run simulations. This calculator and my little HP thermal printer saved the day.
Very cool that it came to the rescue. Seems there are a number of folks out there who loved the hp 28S. Thanks for sharing! I never did see a thermal printer in action.
Congratulations on the milestone. I really enjoy your videos. I bought a 28s many years ago but didn't know how to use it effectively. It took a while to appreciate what I could do with it. Thanks for bringing back the memories. Cheers.
Thanks for the wonderful video and your milestone! I had that same calculator in college in the late 80's. It was so much fun to use! I love RPN and think it was so much easier to key in a problem than the popular TI calculators of today. I wonder why almost all of the engineering departments switched over to TI. I was out of the loop when HP apparently dropped the ball, either intentionally or otherwise.
Thanks for leaving word. Always good to hear from others who have the same fond memories. I use both types of calculators, but RPN/RPL always ends up feeling more "right" to me -- in part (if not full) b/c I spent so much time in that mode of thinking during my formative years.
My first HP was the 28S as an undergrad engineering student and loved it until the case failed at the battery compartment. Replaced it with the 48G and still use it. Thx for the video
Tom, glad you have a similar affinity for the 28S. Such a great calculator in terms of function, if not in terms of durability of that battery compartment cover (though mine did fine). Thanks for leaving a comment.
I bought an HP28C in the late 80's and absolutely loved it. Sometime later, I was browsing secondhand items in a junk store and spotted an HP28S for a ridiculously low price - something like £10 - I don't remember. So I immediately bought it. 30 years later, I still have them and they are both in immaculate condition. They are my calculators of choice. Once you get used to RPN, you never want to use anything else. Compared to modern calculators, the screen is dim and it can be a bit slow if you're doing anything complicated, but the keys are superb and it always works! My only gripe is that it doesn't handle anything except integers in number systems other than decimal (for example, 20.5 in decimal, when converted to hexadecimal, should be 14.8, but it loses the .8).
Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I thought the most powerful feature was its symbolic math capability. You could enter expressions in terms of variables, and it would happily give you the answers in terms of those variables. It even supported symbolic matrix math. It came in very handy during my electrical engineering study. I wrote a ton of programs that came in very handy, like computing convolutions. Very powerful.
Glad you had the opportunity to use one of these superb machines. It was definitely an advantage to be able to use one in my mechanical engineering undergrad.
Thanks for making this video. I am surprised that HP does not make such quality calculators anymore. Calculator Culture has some nice videos on HP calculators. I believe you have watched them
You are welcome. Thanks for leaving a comment. I think the hardware quality of hp Prime is very good, but the overall way it operates feels very piecemeal and not as elegant as the old devices. Yes, Calculator Culture has good videos. I also have enjoyed Logan West's videos.
My first also, given to me by my parents. Unfortunately, mine begun to develop a issue with the alpha keypad, failing intermittently. Sold that and later got a 48sx. And later a 50G. But I did program mine a lot. Curiously thought, the first one that I programmed back then was my older brother’s TI59.
I think most of us that used the hp 28S back in the day really appreciated the device. I do remember that the size of it was a bit inconvenient on the types of small desks in many college campus classrooms, but that was a small price to pay for the superb solver, unit conversion, and matrix math features. With regards to programming, I guess it never felt necessary enough to me to spend the time/effort on. Thanks for sharing your memories, Valmir. Hopefully your hp 50G is still serving you well.
I murdered my original by dumping coffee on it. So I have bought a bunch of them on ebay. My favorite calculator of all time. Programming them was super easy. I still have one on my desk at work but I tend to use Python or Julia as my go to these days.
Such a great device. I never got into programming them -- probably should have done more of that. I really loved that no matter how fast you typed, every key press always produced its digit.
Nice "nostalgia run" 🙂 I still have mine, bought it more than 30 years ago when doing my ships engineer studies. With the battery hatch/compartment intact. I use it every now and then, but have to admit that the more modern Prime or SwissMicros do the heavy lifting today. It also starts to be difficult to source the "N"-cell batteries for it, here in Europe..
Esben, I'm glad you enjoyed it and thank you for leaving a comment. Fun to hear of others' (especially non-US) experiences. I bought one around 1988 when pursuing a mechanical engineering degree - it was Made in the USA. But, I was not using it much and a good friend needed one (his had died), so it went to him. It turns out that both E90 and N type batteries work. But, like you, mine sees little use. I have DM42 at work and at home my go to is a TI-30X Pro MathPrint. Ship engineering sounds cool, btw. Take care.
I'm slightly late to the party, but congratulations on reaching the 1K Scott, it's hard work isn't it!!!!! I'm kind of in awe of these modern calculators that you use (yeah, I know this one is technically old) - they're so capable compared to the vintage stuff that I play around with, and definitely far more capable than me - I still kind of fancy one though, just because........
Thanks, GrumpyTim. It definitely takes effort -- I can only imagine how much time you put in given the high production values of your content -- always impressed w/ it. Music, graphics, and superb videography. Oh, and you even get bonus points (at least in the US) for the accent. And, yes, amazing what a $20 machine can do these days -- just the cleverness of the algorithms used to figure out the natural log of any number, or the tangent, or the nth root -- amazing. Thanks for leaving a comment!
*sigh* My first one too. Did also a lot of programming. Then it dies a few years later, and ... alas, those were the days of non fixable HP calculators. Later on university I got my HP 48 SX, still got and love it. Then added to my collection a HP 15C, a HP 42S, a DM 42 L (from SwissMicros ;o) ), a HP Prime 2nd Edition, a HP 50g. Just love the RPN style and that kind of programmability (not the Prime one, that's crap!).
Yes, the graphing was really slow and limited. But, I did use it occasionally. I had a TI-89 at one point -- it was super capable, but I never really bonded with it. Thanks for the pertinent/useful comment!
@@markgreco1962 $75 in 1984 is quite a good chunk of money. Sounds like you had a calculator you really liked and got a ton of use out of it. Good stuff is worth it when you can enjoy it across the years.
It would have been better to ditch the folding form factor and just have a big slab with a large screen and a hard cover - and the colors on the keys and labels are just terrible! Make it visible! This mistake persists today. In room lighting it is hard to read the blue labels on the keys of the Prime. The blue just disappears under the yellowish light.
There were times that the hp 28S was too big -- especially when you were in a lecture hall with those tiny flip up desks or even the normal side desks -- just not a lot of real estate to work with. I never had any issue w/ the colors, but I also had young eyes at the time. As far as your suggestions go, hp mostly followed them when it replaced the hp 28 with the hp 48. Thanks for leaving your thoughts. Always appreciate hearing the ideas of others.
@@scottcollins7513 I have a 50g, that is fine. I read the whole Owner's Manual for this 28S - there is no way to get data to and from it! That's sort of a death sentence for a programmable device. I was tempted to buy one on Ebay but will pass.
@@scottcollins7513 Both the 41C/CV/CX and the 71B could get on an HP-IL network to send/receive data. You could save to a floppy disk even. And of course both had magnetic card readers.
@@scottcollins7513 It is a great machine, a fitting end of the traditional line. I also have the HP Prime, just got it, learning to make a go of it. VERY fast. Looking at asymptotic expansions again :)