Originally Posted by
h2oxtc
Speaking of the 25c's, they were nearly indestructible. I have to say, the current generation of HP's are built cheap with lousy keypads. Historically HP's have had nice tactile keys that the fingers could dance across ... it's sounds nerdy just writing this. Not so much the recent versions, in fact I'd go so far to say that I "hate" my 35S. The nice keypads are probably why I like my Blackberry (Bold 9900). I won't be switching to a touch screen anytime soon, including the BB Z10.
That's part of it, isn't it? The keys had a quality tactile feel and moved as if they were rotated about an axis instead of just floating around. It sounds like such a trivial thing, but when you use it so much every day, you really appreciate the difference. I'm as cheap as the next guy, but some luxuries are actually worth the cost.
I'm with you on the HP-25 being rugged. Get this. The morning after I bought it (I think it was about $200, which was a princely sum for me at the time), I proudly showed it off to one of my professors. He immediately dropped it on hard cement! And not by accident. He had apparently read about how it was made to take impacts much greater than that, and wanted to demonstrate it to me.
Originally Posted by
qcpmsame
The Curta is interesting, looks similar to some of the cylindrical rules that show up on auctions from time to time. I had a physics instructor that carried a circular rule in his shirt pocket, his version of the classic nerd pocket protector, I suppose.
Agreed about the quality of the newer H-P calculators, since the brown or black bodies went away they are not the same. My wife is addicted to her 12B Business Calc., do not remove it from her office under any circumstances.
Bill
I had a circular slide rule too, but for some reason, never really liked them. I also had a Spirule ... one of those specialized little tools for analyzing closed loop dynamic systems.
The enigmatic Spirule
Nerds of a feather!
