RCL 20

	Introduction v Why we started 1 A letter to PPC Journal David Burch 3 "Thank you, Beep...!" Gordon Dickson 5 How we started 15 The founding of HPCC Frank Wales interviews David Burch 17 I blame Bill & Dave Frank Wales 23 The most toys Dean Lampman 31 Starting a calculator club Richard J. Nelson 37 Growing & changing 47 The early years Rabin Ezra 49 Zengrange & John French Graeme Cawsey 53 A short history of EduCALC Jim B. Carter 59 Developments 63 Constitution and name Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz 65 CHIP chapter recollections Ron Johnson 69 Founding the Philadelphia-area PPC Chapter Jake Schwartz 73 Communicating 79 Datafile Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz 81 Mark Cracknell Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz 85 HPCC.ORG Mark Power 89 Conferences & meetings Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz 93 Gerry Rice Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz 99 Why we need Datafile Jordi Hidalgo 101 Design 103 A Really Pathetic Name Bill Wickes 105 HP-41 design Dave Conklin 109 Graphing calculator design and development Diana Byrne 115 Perspectives 119 Users' clubs Neville Joseph 121 A hardware hacker's perspective Gary Friedman 125 Portrait of the engineer as a young nerd Raan Young 131 My walk along the Hall of Fame Jim Donnelly 139 Coda 143 The end of an era John Olwoch 145 Half a Beep Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz 149 HP - There is no sequel Jeremy Smith 153 About the editors 157 About the contributors 159 Index 167

Back cover text

Before the web, before PDAs, before PCs, one company provided a vision of how computers and software could change lives when put into the hands of ordinary people. Hewlett-Packard's amazing series of hand-held calculators and portable computers, begun in 1972, has introduced a generation of technically-inclined people to personal computing power.

As these tiny computers have grown in capability to be depended on in space missions and on battlefields, people around the world have banded together in so-called "user groups". Through these, they've exchanged information, solved each other's problems, and enjoyed learning about (and playing with!) computers. In the process, they've also made friendships, started businesses, and contributed to the computing environment we live in today.

One such user group, the Handheld and Portable Computer Club (HPCC), started in Britain in 1982 as an off-shoot of the huge US-based group PPC, and is still active twenty years later.

This book celebrates the twentieth anniversary of HPCC. Inside:

• we see what the future of portable computers looked like in 1978
• HPCC founders and members write about the club, and remember those members who have passed on
• the founders of HPCC, PPC and other clubs discuss what they have learned by starting and running them
• the engineers of HP's calculators reveal their thoughts on the company and its products
• fans of HP's smallest computers explain what they find so special about them

Introduction

It is a very human thing to set up groups or clubs of people with a common interest. The rise of electronic equipment since the 1960s has provided many new opportunities for such clubs. One topic of interest was personal computing devices, and the first of these were hand-held programmable calculators.

The most successful club for users of these was PPC; this began in California and soon spread all round the world. This book celebrates 20 years of the club that was originally the British section PPC-UK, which later became the Handheld and Portable Computer Club, or HPCC.

Today, the term 'calculator' either conjures up the idea of 'adding machine', or those brightly-coloured devices sold in bubble-packs and intended for school and university mathematics work. But the kinds of calculators that were the focus of our club's attention were the only truly programmable and portable computers available to ordinary people. The programmability was key—it made them little software engines that could be applied to any task, not just mathematics. That they were still called 'calculators' belied their real capabilities—these machines were true portable computers, and are in many ways the ancestors of present-day laptops and PDAs.

This is not a history book; rather, it covers the first 20 years of HPCC through a series of recollections. The editors asked people associated with HPCC, and with HP handheld calculators or computers, for their recollections of those 20 years. That gave the book its title: "recall 20", or RCL 20 as it would appear in a program on an HP calculator.

Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz & Frank Wales
London, U.K.
September 2002

Excerpted from RCL 20: People, Dreams & HP Calculators, W.A.C. Mier-Jedrzejowicz Ph.D. & Frank Wales (Eds), 2002, ISBN: 0-9510733-3-8

A sample chapter by Frank Wales is also available.