Ah, Russel, you have been to Golden! The mecca of cheap computers, illegal software copies, sleazy MP3 collections violating all copyright laws, pickpockets, and all other things despicable! I was in Hawg Heaven when I first discovered it. Three floors of "Geek Ice Cream" covering a city block, packed with people and hawkers, guys with booths, little stores, and people just carrying stuff around selling it. Crowds so thick you could not walk sometimes all yakking in Cantonese, English, and a dozen other languages all at once. Computers, audio, peripherals, and every software program ever written to disk. THe last time I was there, the police had made one of their occasional sweeps, so the place was relatively empty. If you wanted illegal copies of most software you had to ask for it and a runner would bring it from a back room. Of course I didn't personally indulge in such sleaziness, mind you. That trip I was planning to import a suitcase full of chinese dance shoes, and planned to have a customs official poking through them, so I didn't want anything in there that would raise questions. Has anybody in the US dealt with import duties on stuff from China? -- Lawrence Lile Russell McMahon Sent by: pic microcontroller discussion list 01/23/2003 08:59 PM Please respond to pic microcontroller discussion list To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU cc: Subject: Re: Nostalgia - HP Journal Library / Museum of HP Calculators > > HP65 - 1984 personal pocket computing technology. > > So a 1984 HP calculator is considered a museum piece!? Anything 20 years old could so qualify if it was classic enough in conception and execution to start with. HP often manage well on both regards. > I own two > calculators that I both use regularly, and they are both HP 11C from 1982. > Great calculators. I hope they never break because the new ones don't > seem to have the same convenient horizontal format. I've owned an HP21, 25 and 65 (in that order, the 65 was second hand and I sold it to fund buying my first PC, which I personally imported from the famed Golden Building in Hong Kong :-) . I used a 35, 45 & 55 extensively (long ago) The sole HP35 in the engineering school (bought by a PhD student) was the envy of all when it came out - the common tool at that stage was a slide rule! Nowadays I use whatever comes to hand for basic calculations (el cheapo scientifics cost about $NZ12 = $US6 equivalent) and a spreadsheet or other program as required. Still wouldn't mind a Reverse Polish Notation calculator though - definitely a superior number processing system. RPN is THE most keystroke efficient way to process a numerical problem. In comparison the various attempts at "algebraic logic" are clumsy and inefficient. Russell McMahon -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics -- http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us! email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body