HP Handheld SIG News | March, 2000

HP Teacher Publication Previews an Announcement

The thrice-yearly publication "HPc", published to assist teachers in choosing HP calculators for math education includes an article called "Get in the Loop at NCTM 2000". In there, they announce that a by-invitation-only session will be held to present "the future of graphic calculators" (in conjunction with the National Conference of Teachers of Mathematics annual meeting in Chicago on April 13-15th.) The application form for this event requires that attendees list their learning institution and grade level of math education. One would suspect that HP will require a non-disclosure agreement to get in the door. However, if that turns out to NOT be the case, I'm sure we'll hear more about this event soon after.

Read Jim Lawson's Handi Calc Closure Message

With the dicontinuance of Handi Calc, Jim Lawson decided that some of his thoughts and opinions should be shared with the rest of the HP calculator community. And so, an article titled "Handi Calc Goes Out of Business After Eight Years" was written and posted at his web page (at http://www.waterw.com/~jake-s/handyclc.htm) . Please take a few minutes to read Jim's message - he has some startling things to say about the way the HP dealers are being treated and how those with support in mind are being effectively taken out of the picture. This article was circulated to HP users, enthusiasts and some employees, and I have added some followup articles to the web site after Jim's. There is hope that the right people at Hewlett-Packard's ACO division will react appropriately to this situation and attempt to make things right.

Latest HP49G Beta O.S. Version and Documentation Available

The latest beta version of the HP49 operating system is now version 1.17-9 with a handful bug fixes. Check this out at HP's web site at http://www.hp.com/calculators/graphing/rom/index.html. (We have been hearing that version 1.19 will actually contain some significant computer-algebra-system improvements, but there is no word on how soon it will be released.) In addition, the latest HP49 documentation, consisting of the Users Guide and Advanced Users Guide may be downloaded at http://www.hp.com/calculators/techsupport/graphing/49g_useguide/ on the web. Some of these files have been updated in the past few months.