HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Architect » Thu Jul 16, 2009 5:02 pm

If you click on Google's new quick link to check your spelling on whatever you are attempting to post, the post will immediately be lost.
__________

What a thrill it is to read Richard Nelson again!

As a loyal member of the HPPC I must say that Richard brough a great sense of joy and excitement to the HP-41. It was so much fun receiving his monthly news letters and seeing the the HPPC pack come out and to later meet him at the 10th anniversary in Chicago where I showed him my elephant hide case lined with steerhide. There were many 41's layed out there on display of different colors and button colors along with different configurations. So good to see him continuing.

I also talked with him on the phone on several occasions. Once when the hideous blow-up occurred and once when he was recuperating from a hospital visit where he learned how to run the 48. It always struck me as astonishing that HP neve hired him on and simply considered that a corporate stupidity and ego. No one contributed more to the excitement of the 41 than Richard.

As an architect I considered the physical design of the 41 as passe from the get-go, an example of the off-center product design of the times, but having studied engineering I loved it's functionality. It really destroyed the once ubiquitous slide rule and made calculating fun. But the new LCD display would no longer let you program in the middle of the night as the 35 would let you with it's LED display.

My 41 was always around until some battery guy sold me a similar battery which may have overpowered it.

So when I learned of Warren Furlow's 41emulator for the PC, I was overjoyed. Upon downloading it I discovered that it was about the same size as the original and ate too much of the real estate of the monitor so I implored Warren to make a tiny version. He asked me to draw one up and I did by reducing the space between the buttons since finger spacing was no longer an issue. Warren hooked it up, calling it "Tiny", and then I did a colorized version and he hooked that up as well calling it "Color". It was fine and worked especially well when working in CAD or watching a number of Stock Charts.

Recently I darkended the background and sent it to Warren and he replied that I should get in touch with Antonio Lagana in Adelaide. Antonio is working on his PhD in Quantum Physics and developed a HP 41CX emulator for the iPhone/iPod. I checked into his site at AL Software and was stunned at what he had done and commenced talking with him. He encouraged me to develop a new skin and we also developed a new typeface since I was concerned about visibility and nightime visibility. Interestingly, Antonio and I had both gone to GMI and Michigan.

Pending Apple's approval the new skin, which my 16 year old daugher says is far more interesting, will be available shortly. It amazes me how small the iPhone is and that it can completely contain the functionality of a HP 41 plus a ribbon printer, all for the absurd price of $15.00. Antonio's work is beautiful. And it illustrates the large, encompassing view of Steve Jobs.

It would be my hope that all High School students could be taught the HP in math class so that they could learn the rudiments of programming for the simple joy of it. This would be the perfect venue for it... hook in some serious functionality along with the recordings, and pictures and entertaining things along with the communicaion. The only bad thing that I could imagine would be that now a quick student could flash the answer across the classroom. :D.

It is fun to hear the wish lists developing and all that but a great answer exists right now and it can communicate back and forth with the desktop and Warren's work as well.

Richard remains one of my favorite people of all time. And Warren and Antonio are my heroes too, along with Chris Zakrewski from Stockholm who translated the manual in to Swedish years ago. (You would have to know Microstation to understand this.)

I have dedicated my efforts to Richard, whether or not he likes what I have none. ;)

Bravo to you all! And long live the 41CX!

Bill Dickens
Architect
Architect
..
..
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:04 pm

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Garth » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:13 am

I must say that Richard brough a great sense of joy and excitement to the HP-41

absolutely, along with Bill Wickes, Joe Horn, Wlodeck Mier-Jȩdrzejowicz, and a few other very talented and dedicated people in the user groups, one of which (CHHU) was headed by Richard Nelson.
It amazes me how small the iPhone is and that it can completely contain the functionality of a HP 41

I have to strongly disagree, because one of the HP-41's outstanding strengths that is still absent in most other handhelds is the ability to interface to lots of things at once, including thousands of models of IEEE-488 industrial and lab equipment on the market, through the HP82169A HPIL-to-HPIB converter. An iPhone cannot do that. The HP-41 is where I got my start in automated test equipment, connecting to a half-dozen lab instruments at once, controlling their settings and taking data from them, then crunching the numbers and logging and printing the results. Most of the engineers in the lab where I worked when I got my introduction had their own HP-41's.

And this one too:
But the new LCD display would no longer let you program in the middle of the night as the 35 would let you with its LED display.

I never tried programming with the lights off, especially a 35 which was not programmable. If I could see the 41's keyboard well enough, I could always read the LCD; but that was definitely not true of the TI-58c and 59 with their LED displays when I had to work outdoors. You had to cup your hand over the display to see it, like with the original digital watches with LEDs. They also kept me from working very long when away from the charger, since they were battery hogs.
Garth
Moderator
Moderator
 
Posts: 290
Joined: Tue Jan 20, 2009 1:31 am

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Architect » Sat Jul 25, 2009 3:30 pm

Hey Garth,

Richard headed up the HPPC when I learned about him and that lasted for quite some time, never heard about the other goup having moved to the Amiga and then the PC.

Yes, the IL capability was wonderful. Imagine Steve implementing that on a somewhat larger version of the iPhone with a screen about the size of the 41. A real professional machine. I know that would be wonderful on a construction jobsite. Research drawings, collect data, it really is an unimaginable world that is developing.

I do remember vividly programming the golden section laying in bed late at night in Frank Lloyd Wright's Goetsch Winkler House in Okemos using a HP machine that had a red LED display. The 41's display was not very good at all. The design was passe from the get go. Entasis was never necessary.

The point here is that it would be great if all the kids throughouth the world learned the HP Keyfunky language in algebra class in High School. And kids study habits are different than a professional's usually. They have been known to work late at night with the lights out.

I think that it would be exceedingly wrong to eschew the emulators. Warren Furlow's for the PC is fine and you can use the tiny version for simple tasks without it hogging up the monitor. It was a joy to have that on the PC. Antonio Lagana's iPhone/iPod Touch emulator is fantastic as well and it has the attribute of convenient portability of the original HP Calculators.

Anything that advances the HP-41 is great in my book. Antonio was not aware of the machine when it came out and he came upon it maybe 10 years later but he did fall in love with it enough to go through the trouble of creating the most powerful APP for the iPhone.
Architect
..
..
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:04 pm

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby highfell » Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:25 am

Bill

I came across the HP41 for the first time thanks to Antonio"s great App and I share your eulogistic praises to him for it is a beautifully crafted piece of work. Whilst I am slowly slowy building up a collection of real HP41 stuff, dare I say it, I do actually prefer the I41CX to the real thing, as its very portable, it has loads of Roms, printer and is very easy to customise !!

However the purpose of writing is to say how much I enjoy your new Skin for the I41CX. I now use it all the time rather than the traditional skins. I hope you don't mind but I was the one to suggest further customisation in relation to having multi-coloured options for the digits on the LCD.

Cheers

Nigel
highfell
.
.
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2009 6:02 am

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Architect » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:28 pm

Thank you Nigel,

My efforts started out with Warren Furlow and his emulator for the Windows environment. I argued that the old clunky design was too large to be useful since it gobbled up the real estate. Warren agreed to empower a smaller version if I came up with one so I squeezed things on down and he published it at the Tiny version. Later I offered to colorize it and he offered that as the Color version which is up an running on my desktop all the time. After deciding to give it more contrast I reworked the image a little and sent it in to Warren again and he told me to get in touch with Antonio Lagana and mentioned that Antonio had created an awseome App for the iPhone. I took Warren's suggestion and recommendation and got in touch with Antonio.

These two guys have a mutual admiration society with good cause.

Working with Antonio has been a sheer pleasure. Ironically we both went to General Motors Institute and to the University of Michigan. Antonio got the special degree in Science Engineering, my degree was in Architecure. Antonio's background is stunning, being an Italian Argentinian having grown up in Japan. Since i'm 71 tomorrow Antonio is much younger but somehow we have communicated a lot. He is a sheer delight and makes me proud of being a human being.

Seeing the iHP41+ in operation on my 16 year old daughter's iPod Touch is absolutely wonderful. And hold on, Antonio has more enhancements coming, Display color controls, etc., and he tells me that the IL can be emulated as well and he is battling with writing his PhD thesis and working on the i41.

So nothing will be missing.

And thinking in the long term, I fully believe that this App now turns the tide of the notion that iStuff is only for fun and entertainment. The iPhone and iPod Touch are now serious calculating instruments for everyone, including the engineers and scientists. It would be my dream to see Antonio's emulator taught in every Algebra class in high school worldwide. The kids should learn how a prgram transforms an equation into a quick solver.

HP Keyfunky as I always called it is a very neat programming language that all can quickly learn. (I wish that it was vastly expanded.)

Now back to Richard and the gang. These guys revealed the joy of programming and calculating to an enormous number of people years ago.
Their camaraderie and spirit really made it exciting for a number of years until the Brits and Canadians came up with the Amiga.

If the reunion comes off I would certainly hope that Richard holds out formal invitations to Warren and Antonio. Although I probably can't be there, I know that it would be and extremely exciting time for everyone. The HP41 lives and even better and more joyful.

Antonio picked the name Bauhaus and that is a very insightful choice. I live in a Mies Complex and he was the head of the Bauhaus before Hitler forced him out. Fortunately he came to Chicago and the world got to see his love of light.

Thank you all, each and every one of you, there has neve been a greater group of guys.
Thanks again Nigel, you are a man of eminently good taste.

Bill
Architect
..
..
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:04 pm

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Architect » Sun Aug 23, 2009 4:35 pm

Oh BTW, a crappy TI Calculator can now cost over $100 while the iHP41CX+ costs $15.

Go figure!

Bill
Architect
..
..
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:04 pm

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Architect » Mon Aug 24, 2009 12:40 am

There will be people who will wish for HP to re issue the 41 or enhance it a little.

Why not just use what Antonio has done... it takes our Phaser to heights unimagined by HP. Clearly Steve is a great visionary.

HP has devolved into a printer manufacturer and cartridge company. The inspired creativity has gone a long time ago. Interesting how corporations get their functionaries and the functioaries ultimately take over and run it down. They are typically uninspired, sometimes politically astute but they really don't have what it takes.

So when you see Antonio and Warren at work you see inspired young men building a better world.

Steve has really been an inspired one for qute some time now. He surely beats Gates for intelligent and tasteful creativity and remember that early on he built a little black box with buttons on it that he used to call people all over the world... So, in a way things have not really changed at all for Steve... he simply came up with slicker and slicker packages.

If Steve were really sharp he would promote Antonio's work because it adds so much to his work and there really is a chance now that the whole world can come to understand the joy that the 41 brought and is still now.

Bill
Architect
..
..
 
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:04 pm

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby Pete_ » Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:35 pm

What a welcome surprise to find the forum. 30 years since the 41 came out. Amazing. :)

I have an hour or so to fill before going to pick up someone from the airport and found this forum.

Greetings to fellow enthusiasts, and especially Richard Nelson. My 41C was purchased in late 1980 - 2050A02293: a much loved, expensive treat for a young student. I subscribed to PPC in the early 80s and even have a PPC ROM from those days. The 41C sits in the drawer and doesn't do much work anymore, but, over the years I did much programming and really used the machine a great deal. I trained as a civil engineer and now work in estimating and really all calculations are now done on a computer. I am heavily into programming in VBA for Excel these days. Yes, it is only a small percentage of the population who program. I pored over the early synthetic programming articles and Bill Wicke's excellent book that opened a whole new world. The PPC module was the most tremendous undertaking. Magnificent.

I spent many hours learning & using synthetic programming - and recovering from crashes!! :lol:

I purchased a 48 (from EduCalc) when they first came out and remember being amazed at the very powerful functionality and programming available. Though, as more of a 'numbers person', the 41 continued to do the most work. I'd programmed on earlier calculators, but the majority of my calculator programming was on the 41.

I'm a little surprised that there might be much need for powerful calculators still - with computers so ubiquitous. I'm looking forward to browsing some other posts and re-kindling fond memories.

Kind regards & best wishes to all, Pete

PS I'm in Australia. P
Pete_
.
.
 
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Sep 05, 2009 1:14 pm

Re: HP-41 30th Year Anniversary

Postby jotne » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:06 pm

Welcome to the forum Pete :)
HP41CX with CCD module . HP41CV . HP42S + many other HP calculators
User avatar
jotne
Site Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 69
Joined: Mon Nov 24, 2008 6:52 pm


Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest