You might also have liked the 42S... it was built to be as a more direct successor to the 41's. The UI is much more similar to the 41 than the 28/48/etc.
> I did buy a 28(something) at one point but I didn't love it.
The 28/48 was much more powerful, but it was also a fairly radical shift in approach. The interface got heavier weight, with more to interpret on the display, more keystrokes for many operations, and just generally more to manage. I liked it, but in retrospect mainly because it was a portable computer I could play around with during school, etc.
I think it's also the case that HP's interest in the calculator market was falling off right as RPL (19B, 28, 48, ...) was hitting its stride. TI took over the educational market starting with the TI-30 and TI-81, and computers took over the professional market - so there wasn't much room anymore for a professional HP calculator by the time the early 90's rolled around. (Or at least not enough of a market for the calculator business unit to gain traction within HP to fund its development efforts. My guess is that, as is often the case, the opportunity cost of pursuing a relatively small market was viewed to be excessive when there were other things to do.)
The contrast between the 1972 introduction of the HP-35 and 1993's 48-GX is also striking. The HP-35 got developed because the 'H' of HP wanted it, and even then, he commissioned market research studies and held back the usual development funding. Once developed, the HP-35 sold well, even at >$2K 2016 dollars, due to the fact that the best alternative was either a slide rule or a minicomputer. If it took that much political power within 1972-era HP to sell a product with a such a compelling advantage, it's not hard to see how badly the complete landscape shifted against further calculator development by the time the 90's rolled around.
All that's to say that the RPL platform only got a couple rounds of significant internal development funding by HP. At one point, I'd have really liked to see what they could've done with another round or two of development. And then I graduated high school, got more access to real computers, and it didn't really matter any more.
Those go for some pretty good money, don't they. I actually just picked up a couple of things that I can hopefully use to repair my HP-41CV.
>The 28/48 was much more powerful, but it was also a fairly radical shift in approach.
Yeah. I think that was the thing. I'd been using an HP-55 since the campus store had some almost affordable overstock in about 1977. (When I started college, I got a TI scientific calculator because the HPs were still so pricey. Pricing dropped pretty radically over a few years.) I picked up the 28S at one point but I didn't really need a calculator by then for anything fancy and I never got into the UI and clamshell ergonomics.
You might also have liked the 42S... it was built to be as a more direct successor to the 41's. The UI is much more similar to the 41 than the 28/48/etc.
> I did buy a 28(something) at one point but I didn't love it.
The 28/48 was much more powerful, but it was also a fairly radical shift in approach. The interface got heavier weight, with more to interpret on the display, more keystrokes for many operations, and just generally more to manage. I liked it, but in retrospect mainly because it was a portable computer I could play around with during school, etc.
I think it's also the case that HP's interest in the calculator market was falling off right as RPL (19B, 28, 48, ...) was hitting its stride. TI took over the educational market starting with the TI-30 and TI-81, and computers took over the professional market - so there wasn't much room anymore for a professional HP calculator by the time the early 90's rolled around. (Or at least not enough of a market for the calculator business unit to gain traction within HP to fund its development efforts. My guess is that, as is often the case, the opportunity cost of pursuing a relatively small market was viewed to be excessive when there were other things to do.)
The contrast between the 1972 introduction of the HP-35 and 1993's 48-GX is also striking. The HP-35 got developed because the 'H' of HP wanted it, and even then, he commissioned market research studies and held back the usual development funding. Once developed, the HP-35 sold well, even at >$2K 2016 dollars, due to the fact that the best alternative was either a slide rule or a minicomputer. If it took that much political power within 1972-era HP to sell a product with a such a compelling advantage, it's not hard to see how badly the complete landscape shifted against further calculator development by the time the 90's rolled around.
All that's to say that the RPL platform only got a couple rounds of significant internal development funding by HP. At one point, I'd have really liked to see what they could've done with another round or two of development. And then I graduated high school, got more access to real computers, and it didn't really matter any more.