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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.
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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