HP-97

[Leviset]

I started my programming career in 1980 using an HP-97 Desktop Programmable Calculator with built in Printer. I programmed on this ‘special to me’ machine for a couple of years before we (meaning the Company I worked for - Rugby Portland Cement) bit the bullet and bought a Victor Technology Sirius 1 8086 PC running CP/M 80/86 (badged as an Apricot in the UK). Prior to me starting in 1979/80 someone had bought 7 HP-97s - the remaining 6 were left and never used!). As an aside the Sirius 1 PC cost £2,400 and had only 2 double sided total 720kb each but in reality it was just 720kb in Drive B: as the OS startup had to stay in Drive A: all the time!
A year later we bought an external 10MB (yes Ten Megabytes) for £3,000.
Later in the 80s I went freelance, mainly working on ATM software.
I strongly suspect the 6 HP-97s went into the skip having never been used.
The prices for (sometimes billed as untested) for vintage HP-97s is just shocking the price being driven by dealers?, some asking £1.000 plus.
So my question is would SwissMicro ever consider making a DM97 or a reasonable price, or even a DM67?
Dennis

[toml_12953]

The prices for (sometimes billed as untested) for vintage HP-97s is just shocking the price being driven by dealers?, some asking £1.000 plus.
So my question is would SwissMicro ever consider making a DM97 or a reasonable price, or even a DM67?
Dennis

They might but I'm sure they wouldn't reproduce the mag card reader. It would probably have some sort of solid-state storage.

[Peet]

So my question is would SwissMicro ever consider making a DM97 or a reasonable price, or even a DM67?

I can't imagine that there is a market worth mentioning. The capabilities of the HP67 are are already covered by the DM41X and a desktop calculator with an integrated printer somehow doesn't fit into the current portfolio. It would certainly be more interesting if the existing models supported a current IR printer.

[EM41]

Didier extracted the cardreader rom and modified it in such a way that it runs on the DM41. It contains the HP-97 conversion functions so you can basically run almost all HP-97 programs on the DM-41. If you just want to run your old stuff I would give it a try.
Have a look here viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2496&hilit=cardreader&start=10