50g

Guy Teague wrote:

> hello to the group. first post here. glad to have the resource.
>
> i've used hp calculators since the hp-55 around 1975 or so. the quality
> deteriorated as the builds went to singapore and malaysia and then china.
> also, hp deteriorated as a company over two decades ending up with the
> present debacle and ceo-abuse.

The market for calculators that cost a week's pay is a lot smaller now.
If they weren't made in China, they wouldn't be made at all.

> i detested the 49g+ so much i've been using a ti89. but i saw the blister
> pack for the 50g while passing in a store and it looked so much better than
> the 49g i bought it on the spot without even comparing features. i was a
> little disappointed to note that the software and firmware innards aren't
> any different, but nearly everything else is an improvement.

Say what you like about the physical characteristics -- and it's
certainly a matter of taste as to whether you prefer RPN to RPL, or a
flavor of Algebraic to either -- but the current HP49-series software is
stunningly good, far more powerful than any earlier HP calculator
product. I know, there's plenty of reasons to love an HP-65, or 41CX,
or 15C, or 71B... I know them and love them all... but the 50g's
software beats them all hands down.

> one of the worst in a long list of things wrong with the 49g was the color
> scheme. i could barely see the characters. the 50g could have used a
> different color than white for both the primary and the alternate function,
> but at least i can read the characters.

Agreed. If they'd gone with the classic colors, dark yellow, pale
yellow (for alpha), and blue, and if they'd made the keys in the classic
slope-front shape, my heart would have gone "twang", along with many
others. Still, the layout and shapes do in fact work.

> i would have liked to have seen the 50g use 2 or 3 aa's instead of aaa's,
> but the battery life is so long, and now extended with usb use, that this
> hardly matters.

I have to agree here too. I do not like AAA cells; they hold just too
little juice for their size.

> i would have liked a much better manual. i was reading through the users
> guide last night about the ISOL function and if i hadn't used hp
> calculators
> before i would have never got through the example. i never did figure out
> how to do it in algebraic mode.

I've never heard anyone say anything good about the manual.
Nonetheless, I printed it, along with the AUR for the 49G+ (since as you
note the software is identical). The AUR is much better.

> i would have liked a sliding cover/stand like the ti-89 instead of the
> bulky, foul-smelling cheap vinyl one.

Here I must disagree. What you take for vinyl is some kind of leather
-- it doesn't look like calf or cow, it may be pig or goat -- and it
transmits far less shock to the calc when dropped. What I miss, and
someday will make for myself, is a decent quick-reference guide. The
problem, of course, is that if I wanted a quick-reference guide that had
the same level of detail as, say, the one for the 41C, it would have to
be several dozen pages long -- pretty thick for a pamphlet. I'll
probably make it anyway someday.

> i really would have liked mac connection software as the ti89 has. ti
> really
> supports the mac. now that mac has a unix core there is no reason for hp
> (hp-ux anyone?) to not support the mac.

What does the Mac's core have to do with anything? The software you are
talking about, equivalent to the PC's software, would have to be GUI
software anyway. Realistically, connectivity software is not a profit
center; it can't pay back its development costs, and it's not
infrastructure software like an HR database or the like, so it would
never get buy-in from product managers. Connectivity Software is purely
a selling tool -- a feature for the feature list when compared to
competing products. And "Mac-owning high-end calculator buyers" is
perceived as a small market segment, too small to bother courting, right
or wrong. (Probably right -- I'm guessing the high-end calculator
market is really too small (and low-margin) for HP even to bother with,
really, if it weren't for tradition -- HP simply got too big.)

> i'm ecstatic to have my equation library with the formula pics back!

You'll be happy to learn that there's an even better one, with units
support, and pics, available here: http://www.software49g.gmxhome.de/

Some other nice things there, too.

> but in spite of all my little carps, i'm glad to be back in the hp fold.
> i'll be asking you guys dumb questions to try to get back up to speed.

Glad to have you back.

--
Dave Boyd
in deterius cadere potest, et olim cecidimus