HP41C, a giant leap for mobile "Turing Completeness"...

SteinwayTransitCorp

SteinwayTransitCorp

Active member
I find engineering today is more for engineering than any real improvement, just another way of justifying a price increase. Look no further than todays cars, tons of technology that few people use and the ones that do complain about it. Engineering used to be for the greater good……no more.
 
idssteve

idssteve

Active member
spARTacus said:
Most things today are about marketing and selling, not really about engineering.
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Marketing and selling have always been part of engineering. Abject incompetence seems something recent. Imo. Or, most precisely, self congratulatory incompetence? These "kids" seem to derive some sort of sick pride in knowing NOthing. Imo. Grrrrrr.

My M. E. Dept head wore bibs. Loaded with calipers, slide rules, rules, pencils etc.. He routinely observed that REAL engineers get DIRTY! We shower before AND after work.
He conducted a 1hr credit intro 101 class first thing Mondays. For incoming freshmen. Typically first day, he tell a story....

... a preacher, a drunkard and an engineer were waiting turns at a guillotine. Asked if prefered face up, or face down, the preacher proclaimed he want to go face up. Facing Our Lord! Laid him down. Pulled trigger. Blade halted mid way.. Considered a miracle, the preacher was freed to live.

The drunkard then figured it worked for the preacher... and chose face up. Likewise blade halted part way and drunkard was also set free to live.

Engineer seeing this chose likewise. Laid him down. Prepared to trip the trigger. Engineer points and says "i see your problem...". lol.


Sometimes timing matters. Lol..
 
spARTacus

spARTacus

Active member
idssteve said:
Marketing and selling have always been part of engineering...
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Not the type of marketing, sales (and project management) going on nowadays. Nowadays thorough engineering and technical management gets pushed aside. Not enough time or priority in comparison to needing to ASAP get out the next release, the next gadget, the next upgrade version, or at certain low price points. Minimums to reduce liability likelihood below sales impacting embarrassment or law suits seem to barely be done.
 
Ph1llip

Ph1llip

Active member
spARTacus said:
Not the type of marketing, sales (and project management) going on nowadays. Nowadays thorough engineering and technical management gets pushed aside. Not enough time or priority in comparison to needing to ASAP get out the next release, the next gadget, the next upgrade version, or at certain low price points. Minimums to reduce liability likelihood below sales impacting embarrassment or law suits seem to barely be done.
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I agree. Engineering is a science, it's completely separate to "marketing and sales" which are not a science.

Market research may determine what product features are likely to result in more sales, but an engineer that builds products for sales does so within their brief, which includes budgetary considerations. An engineer designs and builds something within the constraints of what they are given. It may be cost, functionality, durability etc. The fact that the outcome might be cheap, functionally poor or even dangerous (in the case of batteries) is irrelevant to the science of Engineering.

To quote one of my favorite sayings, "Good and Fast will not be cheap, Good and Cheap will not be fast and Fast and Cheap will not be good".
 
idssteve

idssteve

Active member
A prof was fond of setting a waterpump from a Rolls on table beside one from SB Chevy. He'd ask the class which is "harder" to engineer...

The Chevy waterpump demanded FAR greater engineering resources than the Rolls. Primarily because price variable commands much greater priority for Chevy customers than for Rolls' clientele. Lol


Never got him to admit where or how he got that Rolls part. Lol.
 
SteinwayTransitCorp

SteinwayTransitCorp

Active member
idssteve said:
A prof was fond of setting a waterpump from a Rolls on table beside one from SB Chevy. He'd ask the class which is "harder" to engineer...

The Chevy waterpump demanded FAR greater engineering resources than the Rolls. Primarily because price variable commands much greater priority for Chevy customers than for Rolls' clientele. Lol


Never got him to admit where or how he got that Rolls part. Lol.
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My answer would have been……who me…..and nope never convicted……lmao
 
idssteve

idssteve

Active member
SteinwayTransitCorp said:
My wife still uses her “original’ and I have my original one as well.
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Lol. "=" keys drive me nuts!! Lol

Greatest thing in early days, profs might permit calculator sharing. IF you held it up and showed prof or assistant power was off. Which cleared everything in those volatile ram days. Lol.

Without fail, anyone who borrowed my HP eventually asked where the "=" key was... Standard reply was that the factory forgot and I got a great deal on it... NO one asked to borrow my HP before long. Lol

Some of us continued regular slide rule races well into calculator days.. Only HP MIGHT challenge a good slide rule operator. Maybe.
 
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SteinwayTransitCorp

SteinwayTransitCorp

Active member
idssteve said:
Lol. "=" keys drive me nuts!! Lol

Greatest thing in early days, profs might permit calculator sharing. IF you held it up and showed prof or assistant power was off. Which cleared everything in those volatile ram days. Lol.

Without fail, anyone who borrowed my HP eventually asked where the "=" key was... Standard reply was that the factory forgot and I got a great deal on it... NO one asked to borrow my HP before long. Lol

Some of us continued regular slide rule races well into calculator days.. Only HP MIGHT challenge a good slide rule operator. Maybe.
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Well you forget, these tools need some brains………long before the idiot proof crowd took over…lmao
 
idssteve

idssteve

Active member
Paul Reichert said:
I had a Texas Instruments programmable in 1st year. Its limitations meant it was two steps short of programming the quadratic equation. Useless, basically.
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Ti made some capable stuff. My old Ti59 certainly suffered little trouble with quadratics. I liked its thermal printer mostly.. Along with tape drive.. Of course HP41 does printers, tape drives, card reader, bar code wand, 4-20ma PID, etc, etc. AND i could do quadratics via RPN quicker than via programming. Unless the quadratic is part of a bigger solve. Lol.


Transmitted my first alphanumeric msg via rs232 from HP41. 1979? Lol.
 
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Paul Reichert

Paul Reichert

Member
idssteve said:
Ti made some capable stuff. My old Ti59 certainly suffered little trouble with quadratics. I liked its thermal printer mostly.. Along with tape drive.. Of course HP41 does printers, tape drives, card reader, bar code wand, 4-20ma PID, etc, etc. AND i could do quadratics via RPN quicker than via programming. Unless the quadratic is part of a bigger solve. Lol.


Transmitted my first alphanumeric msg via rs232 from HP41. 1979? Lol.
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Well, I wasn't happy, had to memorize the damn thing.
 
idssteve

idssteve

Active member
Paul Reichert said:
Well, I wasn't happy, had to memorize the damn thing.
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Especially if it was sold as a "Scientific" calculator. Wont get much "science" done without quadratics. Lol.

Some things are worth memorizing. Never regretted anything i ever learned. Might resent HAVING to learn but... Once stuffed in there, never noticed much neck muscle strain from supporting the added weight... lol.
 
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