But my current referer log has 7 hits with the referring page being My Yahoo.

Does My Yahoo have an RSS tool now?

OH... I'll bet someone has my blog bookmarked in My Yahoo.

Never mind.

10:22:30 AM    comments ()  trackback []  

I have been a fan of Hewlett Packard Calculators for a long time. Before they were the company that made the printers, to me they were the company that made the coolest calculators.

I first found out about them when I was about 12. I had a subscription to Popular Electronics (before I was into computers, I was into electronics, and yes, I remember getting that famous issue with the Altair on the cover), and I loved filling out the "bingo cards" and getting loads of product literature in the mail. I lived in a small town, and this was the only way I could keep up with the new technology. I forget if I asked for HP calculator literature directly (I probably did, I remember reading a review/comparison of the HP-67 (with the cool mag card reader and the need for 3 shift buttons) and some cool TI calculator (the one that took ROM chips in the back)), but they sent me this magazine/catalog that I absolutely fell in love with.

This was the beginning of my obsession with HP calculators.

There was this article, really more of a short story, of this handheld calculator that had a video screen and would do helpful things like give you directions and keep various bits of information for you. This was in the late 70's, mind you, and so seemed to be almost unthinkable. I'm sure that anyone reading this entry today can immediately picture two or three devices that could easily do everything that this imaginary calculator did (Garmin's new palm device comes to mind), with the notable exception of voice recognition.

I remember poring through those magazines, trying to figure out which of those calculators I could possibly afford to buy. I was looking for something that was cheap enough, and yet programmable. A programmable calculator was the holy grail. I finally settled on the scientific model of the new "E" series calculators. The HP-33E. It had the coveted programmability, it had the scientific functionality that a science nerd wanted, and most of all, it was only a little over $100 in cost, and I had cut a deal with my parents that they would match me dollar for dollar in the purchase of this calculator.

I mowed my grandmother's lawn as often as I could, and tried to save as much of my allowance as possible. In retrospect, it was good that I had to work so much to get the calculator, because it made me treasure it when it finally arrived. I have fond memories of two days associated with the acquisition of that calculator -- the day I'd finally made enough money to buy it and we sent in the order (no stores carried it nearby), and then the day it arrived. That was a great day.

I opened the box (I still remember that white box with the funky seventies grid pattern off to one side), and couldn't stop myself from immediately burrowing into the box and pulling out the device. It was smaller than I expected, but it was also much more, ... substantial than I had expected. That was my first exposure to the glory days of HP calculator quality.

After turning it on, and then realizing I had no idea how to use it, I opened the manual and started to read. I learned how to program it. My first program just made it count. The second program was provided by the manual: a lunar lander simulator. Whenever I showed it to friends, they never understood how I could see a lunar landing game in those red digits, but I did, and I loved it.

This was also my first lessons in optimization. The HP-33E could only store 49 steps in its programming memory, so if you wanted to do something complex, you either had to come up with a clever way to leverage the existing functions, or you had to be exceedingly clever in the way you structured your programs. It was challenging, and it was fun.

For two years in junior high I wore that calculator on my belt. Yes, I know now how much of a geek that made me out to be, but I didn't know that then, and I am certain that I wouldn't have cared. I remember meeting a friend of my mother's somewhere while wearing that belt case. He pointed at it, and asked "TI?" "No," I said, with a certain amount of contemptuousness, "HP." He raised his eyebrows a little bit, looked me in the eye, and said "Wow. That thing's worth more than you are!" I was pleased, and a little smug. I had met another HP fan, and he had made me feel a little bit special.

Eventually the rechargeable battery wore out, and I had gotten more social in high school, and more sensitive to the appearance of nerdliness, so I never really fixed it. I did buy a 15C in college, and had always lusted after a 41C (not to mention the CV and CX), but I was a poor college student.

After college, with my first real job, I made a point of buying the top end HPs, not because I needed them, but because I could. First the 28C. Then the 48SX, and of course the 48GX. But because it was so easy to buy them, I have to say that I never enjoyed them as much as that first 33E. It didn't matter that they could do so much more than that now-antiquated 33E, they just didn't have the same impact.

I still can't justify owning an HP, nothing I do needs them. But I still want one. And I've learned that the wanting is the best part. The dreaming is the best part. Well, at the very least, it certainly is cheaper.

9:49:18 AM    comments ()  trackback []