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From: TW on 17 Mar 2010 11:46
> e also Jean-Yves Avenard shoukld be hired fior a moment.
> What I'm now waiting for is that HPGCC 3.0 compoatible RON 3.0 is released.

HPGCC is a dead project at the moment, and v3 will likely never be
released.

Any code from HPGCC will never be incorporated into the official HP
rom. Maybe a launcher could be added at some point, but it isn't a
priority at the moment.

TW
From: Bruce Horrocks on 17 Mar 2010 21:19
On 17/03/2010 02:48, Han wrote:
> Can anyone shed some light on the history of the HP 49 -> HP 49G+ ->
> HP 50G series in terms of hardware changes as well as operating
> systems?

If only I could write as well as Verity Stob.[1] Oh well, here goes...

In the beginning there was the HP28C. It 'only' had a 4 line display and
2KB of RAM but it introduced RPL, nearly as we know and love today. It
was a marvel: it could do symbolic algebra which was unique for the
time. It could symbolically integrate and differentiate. And it was
really fast: it would really quickly tell you that it had run out of
memory. Still it was quite a big hit, setting the standard for the
models to come.

Next came its big brother the HP-28S. (Funny how, in the calculator
world, big brothers are younger than little brothers.) It had 32Kbytes
of RAM. And in those days, 32Kbytes was so enormously big that it needed
to be *managed*. So out went the single line of variables in the 28C and
in came 'directories'. Ta da! Yes, you could organise variables into
directories and subdirectories. Directories were really useful - when
you lost the entire memory of the calculator trying to change batteries,
you could now exclaim 'Gosh darn, I've just lost five entire directory's
worth of work!' Which sounds as though you've been so much more productive.

The 28S was very popular. People loved its clamshell design with two
keyboards, meaning that the keys could be clearly labelled without
clutter. They didn't love the battery door though, which broke quite
often, even if you weren't a clumsy oaf with the finesse of an elephant
wearing boxing gloves. So along came the HP48SX.

SX stood for Scientific Expandable, but it was all too easy to think
'Expendable' instead. Except that it wasn't really expendable since
things still cost 'too much' in those days. However, it solved the
'losing data when changing batteries' problem by having a serial port
which allowed it to be backed-up to a PC. Hallelujah! It had 32KBytes of
RAM but you could add memory cards of either 32 or 128Kbytes. One of the
cards could be merged with main memory to give unheard of amounts of
working RAM. (Actually I use the phrase 'unheard of' metaphorically - if
someone actually had one of these cards then, boy, did you hear about it.)

The other major change was to drop the clamshell case. Apparently
'marketing' (those people in the back office who don't get out much
except when they've run out of coke) did some 'research' and discovered
that 'students' expect a calculator to look like a rectangular block
with a big screen at the top (as big as possible, irrespective of the
actual resolution) and lots and lots of buttons underneath. Preferably
with about 5 or 6 labels on each. Any calculator designer who produced
designs that did not follow this model exactly was sent off to the
Siberian salt mines. (As an aside, I have some wonderful prototype case
designs carved in solid rock salt.) The HP48SX was as near perfection as
there has ever been in the RPL line. But perfection can be improved upon
by applying the 'less is more' philosophy.

The HP48S was the result. It had identical software to the HP48SX but
less hardware - specifically only 32KBytes of RAM and no expansion
ports, so you couldn't add memory cards. It retained the serial port but
so slavish was the adherence to the 'less is more' philosophy that even
the model name had a letter removed.

The 48S was actually a remarkable product - remarkable because it sold
in large numbers - much more than expected. But even more remarkably, it
caused sales of the HP48SX to increase as well. So much so that HP felt
they could afford to introduce an updated version, the HP48GX.

The GX was even more student oriented (aka in the absence of critical
thought, we'll try and be as TI like as possible). So it introduced
drop-down menus for everything. These were slow. Really slow. Really,
really slow. But they could at least be turned off. So that was good.
Best thought of as 'shop demo mode' i.e. looks good and really easy to
use when dad is shown it by the bloke in the store. (Dad being the buyer
of HP calculators and so has to 'approve' the purchase even though he
doesn't really have a clue and it is the son who's going to college and
will actually use it.) Also those menus make it really easy for the
bloke in the store to look like he knows what he is doing. (At this
point I feel I should diverge into an honourable mention for Richard
Nelson who was one of those blokes in a store. In fact he was the bloke
in his *own* store. And he did know what he was doing, even if he didn't
look like it.)

The GX wasn't well received. The colour scheme on the keyboard was
changed from nice clear orange and something (I forget and I don't have
mine with me at the moment) on the SX to green and purple on the GX.
These were hard to tell apart under anything less than bright lighting
and, for those with the wrong type of colour blindness, they were all
but impossible to tell apart under any lighting.

Naturally the GX needed some more features so list processing was added
to RPL. An attempt was made to allow more or less any command to work on
either its traditional single arguments or lists of arguments. This
mostly worked as expected but there were some surprises. Also some
explicit list processing commands were added. These turned out to have
been rather poorly coded and faster, more robust community derived
versions in userRPL were quickly developed.

The GX came with 128KBytes of main memory and is expandable with two
memory card slots like the SX. There were some electrical changes (IIRC)
which enable larger cards to be used. At the expense of compatibility
with the SX ROM cards. But that wasn't too big a problem since SX ROM
cards were fantastically expensive and only corporate types could afford
them. The GX was soon followed by a cheaper, HP48G model released with
only 32KB of main memory and no expansion card slots. By now (1998),
32KB was looking rather miserly and HP quickly came out with the HP48G+
with 128KB instead. (This actually makes a very nice calculator and well
worth getting if you find a cheap one on you know where.)

Here endeth the 'old testament' namely the old certainties of one true
religion - RPN - and a large enter key. What followed can only be
described as 'new testament' because ever increasing amounts of
forgiveness were demanded from HP fans.

The HP49G was the first model to drop the Saturn CPU (a custom design
from HP that had been in use for decades) and use an ARM to emulate it.
The interface was revamped by incorporating the MetaKernel. This
wizardry was achieved by employing Cyrille de Brebisson and Jean-Yves
Avenard, two French students who had developed and were selling an
alternate interface for the 48GX. HP then nullified this stroke of
genius by saddling them with the worst rubber-key keyboard design since
the Sinclair Spectrum. They were also forced by the 'marketing' people
to implement an algebraic mode and, rubbing salt into the wound, it was
the default mode. This was, apparently, so that 'students' would be more
'comfortable' with it. All it probably did was contribute to an increase
in bullying - previously the one HP user in a class of TI sheep could at
least claim he was being different and thinking for himself; now it just
looked like his dad had gone to store *on his own* and bought the wrong
one because it looked vaguely like a TI.

What should have been a great machine was let down by an awful keyboard
and it is now fondly remembered as 'the frozen Hamster-butt blue one'.
It did also introduce flash ROM and so the ability to eradicate bugs by
loading a newer ROM into the machine.

Next was the HP49G+. This was so good that eBay prices for HP41s in
virtually any condition went through the roof. The 49G+ replaced an
awful rubber keyboard with an awful plastic keyboard. So not really an
advance. HP were really, really struggling with keyboards at this time
as the other models in their range at the time were just as bad or
worse. No doubt the true story will emerge at some point in the future
when a Chinese multi-gazillionaire writes his memoirs explaining how he
got rich by screwing HP.

Finally, (skipping some oddities like the HP48GII) we come to the HP50G
which is still on sale today, has a quite passable keyboard and which
you all know and love, so I'll shut up. If they update it with the
keyboard technology used on the new 30B then we'll almost be back to
where we were in 1982. ;-)

Here endeth the history of the HP48/49/50 series.



[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/stob/
--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey
England
(bruce at scorecrow dot com)
From: Jacob Wall on 17 Mar 2010 21:53
On Mar 17, 6:19 pm, Bruce Horrocks <07....(a)scorecrow.com> wrote:
> On 17/03/2010 02:48, Han wrote:
>
> > Can anyone shed some light on the history of the HP 49 ->  HP 49G+ ->
> > HP 50G series in terms of hardware changes as well as operating
> > systems?
>
> If only I could write as well as Verity Stob.[1] Oh well, here goes...
>
> In the beginning there was the HP28C. It 'only' had a 4 line display and
> 2KB of RAM but it introduced RPL, nearly as we know and love today. It
> was a marvel: it could do symbolic algebra which was unique for the
> time. It could symbolically integrate and differentiate. And it was
> really fast: it would really quickly tell you that it had run out of
> memory. Still it was quite a big hit, setting the standard for the
> models to come.
>
> Next came its big brother the HP-28S. (Funny how, in the calculator
> world, big brothers are younger than little brothers.) It had 32Kbytes
> of RAM. And in those days, 32Kbytes was so enormously big that it needed
> to be *managed*. So out went the single line of variables in the 28C and
> in came 'directories'. Ta da!  Yes, you could organise variables into
> directories and subdirectories. Directories were really useful - when
> you lost the entire memory of the calculator trying to change batteries,
> you could now exclaim 'Gosh darn, I've just lost five entire directory's
> worth of work!' Which sounds as though you've been so much more productive.
>
> The 28S was very popular. People loved its clamshell design with two
> keyboards, meaning that the keys could be clearly labelled without
> clutter. They didn't love the battery door though, which broke quite
> often, even if you weren't a clumsy oaf with the finesse of an elephant
> wearing boxing gloves. So along came the HP48SX.
>
> SX stood for Scientific Expandable, but it was all too easy to think
> 'Expendable' instead. Except that it wasn't really expendable since
> things still cost 'too much' in those days. However, it solved the
> 'losing data when changing batteries' problem by having a serial port
> which allowed it to be backed-up to a PC. Hallelujah! It had 32KBytes of
> RAM but you could add memory cards of either 32 or 128Kbytes. One of the
> cards could be merged with main memory to give unheard of amounts of
> working RAM. (Actually I use the phrase 'unheard of' metaphorically - if
> someone actually had one of these cards then, boy, did you hear about it.)
>
> The other major change was to drop the clamshell case. Apparently
> 'marketing' (those people in the back office who don't get out much
> except when they've run out of coke) did some 'research' and discovered
> that 'students' expect a calculator to look like a rectangular block
> with a big screen at the top (as big as possible, irrespective of the
> actual resolution) and lots and lots of buttons underneath. Preferably
> with about 5 or 6 labels on each. Any calculator designer who produced
> designs that did not follow this model exactly was sent off to the
> Siberian salt mines. (As an aside, I have some wonderful prototype case
> designs carved in solid rock salt.) The HP48SX was as near perfection as
> there has ever been in the RPL line. But perfection can be improved upon
> by applying the 'less is more' philosophy.
>
> The HP48S was the result. It had identical software to the HP48SX but
> less hardware - specifically only 32KBytes of RAM and no expansion
> ports, so you couldn't add memory cards. It retained the serial port but
> so slavish was the adherence to the 'less is more' philosophy that even
> the model name had a letter removed.
>
> The 48S was actually a remarkable product - remarkable because it sold
> in large numbers - much more than expected. But even more remarkably, it
> caused sales of the HP48SX to increase as well. So much so that HP felt
> they could afford to introduce an updated version, the HP48GX.
>
> The GX was even more student oriented (aka in the absence of critical
> thought, we'll try and be as TI like as possible). So it introduced
> drop-down menus for everything. These were slow. Really slow. Really,
> really slow. But they could at least be turned off. So that was good.
> Best thought of as 'shop demo mode' i.e. looks good and really easy to
> use when dad is shown it by the bloke in the store. (Dad being the buyer
> of HP calculators and so has to 'approve' the purchase even though he
> doesn't really have a clue and it is the son who's going to college and
> will actually use it.) Also those menus make it really easy for the
> bloke in the store to look like he knows what he is doing. (At this
> point I feel I should diverge into an honourable mention for Richard
> Nelson who was one of those blokes in a store. In fact he was the bloke
> in his *own* store. And he did know what he was doing, even if he didn't
> look like it.)
>
> The GX wasn't well received. The colour scheme on the keyboard was
> changed from nice clear orange and something (I forget and I don't have
> mine with me at the moment) on the SX to green and purple on the GX.
> These were hard to tell apart under anything less than bright lighting
> and, for those with the wrong type of colour blindness, they were all
> but impossible to tell apart under any lighting.
>
> Naturally the GX needed some more features so list processing was added
> to RPL. An attempt was made to allow more or less any command to work on
> either its traditional single arguments or lists of arguments. This
> mostly worked as expected but there were some surprises. Also some
> explicit list processing commands were added. These turned out to have
> been rather poorly coded and faster, more robust community derived
> versions in userRPL were quickly developed.
>
> The GX came with 128KBytes of main memory and is expandable with two
> memory card slots like the SX. There were some electrical changes (IIRC)
> which enable larger cards to be used. At the expense of compatibility
> with the SX ROM cards. But that wasn't too big a problem since SX ROM
> cards were fantastically expensive and only corporate types could afford
> them. The GX was soon followed by a cheaper, HP48G model released with
> only 32KB of main memory and no expansion card slots. By now (1998),
> 32KB was looking rather miserly and HP quickly came out with the HP48G+
> with 128KB instead. (This actually makes a very nice calculator and well
> worth getting if you find a cheap one on you know where.)
>
> Here endeth the 'old testament' namely the old certainties of one true
> religion - RPN - and a large enter key. What followed can only be
> described as 'new testament' because ever increasing amounts of
> forgiveness were demanded from HP fans.
>
> The HP49G was the first model to drop the Saturn CPU (a custom design
> from HP that had been in use for decades) and use an ARM  to emulate it..
> The interface was revamped by incorporating the MetaKernel. This
> wizardry was achieved by employing Cyrille de Brebisson and Jean-Yves
> Avenard, two French students who had developed and were selling an
> alternate interface for the 48GX. HP then nullified this stroke of
> genius by saddling them with the worst rubber-key keyboard design since
> the Sinclair Spectrum. They were also forced by the 'marketing' people
> to implement an algebraic mode and, rubbing salt into the wound, it was
> the default mode. This was, apparently, so that 'students' would be more
> 'comfortable' with it. All it probably did was contribute to an increase
> in bullying - previously the one HP user in a class of TI sheep could at
> least claim he was being different and thinking for himself; now it just
> looked like his dad had gone to store *on his own* and bought the wrong
> one because it looked vaguely like a TI.
>
> What should have been a great machine was let down by an awful keyboard
> and it is now fondly remembered as 'the frozen Hamster-butt blue one'.
> It did also introduce flash ROM and so the ability to eradicate bugs by
> loading a newer ROM into the machine.
>
> Next was the HP49G+. This was so good that eBay prices for HP41s in
> virtually any condition went through the roof. The 49G+ replaced an
> awful rubber keyboard with an awful plastic keyboard. So not really an
> advance. HP were really, really struggling with keyboards at this time
> as the other models in their range at the time were just as bad or
> worse. No doubt the true story will emerge at some point in the future
> when a Chinese multi-gazillionaire writes his memoirs explaining how he
> got rich by screwing HP.
>
> Finally, (skipping some oddities like the HP48GII) we come to the HP50G
> which is still on sale today, has a quite passable keyboard and which
> you all know and love, so I'll shut up. If they update it with the
> keyboard technology used on the new 30B then we'll almost be back to
> where we were in 1982. ;-)
>
> Here endeth the history of the HP48/49/50 series.
>
> [1]http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/stob/
> --
> Bruce Horrocks
> Surrey
> England
> (bruce at scorecrow dot com)

Nice write-up Bruce! I found that enjoyable to read. A lot of what
you mentioned was new to me actually, so even though I was hoping to
go all day without learning something new today...

I became a HP calc user in 2005 when I bought a 49g+, which has a
perfectly working keyboard still, must be the later model, now quite
happy with the 50g which I prefer slightly although my 49g+ sees
regular use still. Never owned or used a 48 series, and definitely
not a 28S, so I can't compare the quality of the 'old testament'
calculators to the 'new' ones.

Also I've had only positive experience with the new ones so no reason
to spend more for older technology, IMO.

Jacob
From: Al Borowski on 17 Mar 2010 22:09
On Mar 18, 1:46 am, TW <timwess...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > e also Jean-Yves Avenard shoukld be hired fior a moment.
> > What I'm now waiting for is that HPGCC 3.0 compoatible RON 3.0 is released.
>
> HPGCC is a dead project at the moment, and v3 will likely never be
> released.
>
> Any code from HPGCC will never be incorporated into the official HP
> rom. Maybe a launcher could be added at some point, but it isn't a
> priority at the moment.

This is kind of depressing. I remember multiple people wanting to
release patches or updates to the released version, only to be told
"don't bother, it's fixed in 3.0".

Is the source code for 3.0 online anywhere?

Cheers,

Al
From: TW on 17 Mar 2010 23:22
> This is kind of depressing. I remember multiple people wanting to
> release patches or updates to the released version, only to be told
> "don't bother, it's fixed in 3.0".
>
> Is the source code for 3.0 online anywhere?

I think Egan Ford has it, but I don't know if the authors ever gave
permission for it to be released publicly and I don't know which
license it was under.

I, and several others, were quite annoyed at the HPGCC team for that
reason. It is one thing to say "it's open source, do it yourself" or
something to that effect, but individuals were actively discouraged
from participating which really killed interest overall in C for the
calculators . . . :-(

I can understand why the team would want to release a nice, finished
project, but I don't like what happened as a result. It is probably
time to take the v2 code and start from there.

TW

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