> 1a. Re: HP 27S Solver & HP 50g SolveWhy does "made in Singapore" distress you?
> Posted by: "Guy Teague" accts@... gteague
> hp used to be renowned for their quality and it was a sad day to see 'made
> in singapore' on an hp27s i bought although it's still one of my favorite
> calculators as to operation even though it literally eats expensive
> batteries and you can barely see the display. i wonder if any of the folks
> praising the 'quality' of the hp50 have even worked on an hp35, 45, 55 &c.
> the new hp35 're-issue' was a welcome attempt and it indeed brings back fond
> memories of when hp wrote the book on calculator quality, but the interface
> and programming are not good and i myself found a bug in it and when it
> comes down to me finding a bug hp missed, they are indeed in trouble.
HP calculators have been manufactured in Singapore in addition to other places for more
than the past 30 years. Singapore has world class manufacturing facilities and a highly
skilled workforce. Singapore is a source of Intel CPUs and numerous primary components
from other manufacturers also.
It was actually more profitable for HP to ship calculator components from California and
Oregon to Asia. They were assembled there and then returned to the USA for packaging and
final shipment. That practice is no different than those of nearly any other
manufacturer you can name, whether their corporate headquarters are in the US or Japan.
Today the world's cheapest manufacturing comes from China which is also the major
dumping ground for all the toxic byproducts of electronics manufacturing.
[ sidebar: I worked for HP/Corvallis in 1983, and for Intel from 1984-1991. ]
I believe the last model that HP manufactured mostly in the USA was the HP67. Underneath
the keyboard, there was a entirely different design. Each key essentially floated in a
three-part cup-like structure. If you spilled a small amount of liquid on the keyboard,
you could just turn it over and shake it out. The HP41 and the HP12/15/16 series sported
cheaper and less sturdy snap disk keys (basically just a thin sheet with aluminum
protrusions under the keys).
The HP49 was designed by Kinpo Electronics, Inc. At one time HP's calculators were their
most profitable product. They were designed by the Advanced Products Division in
Corvallis, Oregon. I believe it is just a minor profit center now if at all.
Explore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_calculators
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Cary Enoch Reinstein... aka enochsvision, Enoch's Vision Inc.
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