This page is out of a manual from the mid 1970s. Who can tell me what the product is that this manual belongs to? More clues to follow if needed.

The prize is... you get to feel great that your memory continues to function as if the 1970s were yesterday!

 

Lunar lander

 

Well, as the title says, the game is a lunar lander simulator but that's not the product.

 

1977-79 HP-19C/HP-29C by Hewlett-Packard?

 

We have a winner. Sir, your memory is excellent. I was hoping this would run longer but also anticipated someone might just know it straight off. Actually it's an HP25C from 1977. Used to love this game. Here are some photos...

Programming code...

 

Yow! I can't believe you still have those! Very cool to see. Didn't know this calculator had intended these as 'games'!
And..yeah sorry for ruining the fun.

 

I'm glad you got it. I just dug mine out of a box, charged it and tried to see how well it works. Unfortunately not all the keys work reliably. These calculators were amazing, particularly for the time and their size is smaller than an iphone (but not as thin). That was when HP was a highly regarded company, not "printer maker" that they unfortunately probably became best known for some time later. The programming manual has 160 pages and games are only 5. There are also programs for algebra & other mathematical methods, finance, navigation, statistics and surveying. Anyway, enjoy the memory!

 

Didn't NASA use HP calculators on the the Space Shuttle flights as back-up computer?

 

Here's a link to a website about NASA's use of HP calculators. The post on 2/2/2013 says they used the HP25C which would have been in the early years of the space shuttle programme. The blog goes into some detail about models and uses if you're interested.
https://hpinspace.wordpress.com/

 

Great post. Some additional HP trivia. The HP calculators were selected and tested by astronaut Fred Gregory along with nonother than NASA engineer James Ragan.

 

Nice "patina".

 

Great HP calculators featured with far better buttons than Texas Instruments counterparts !

 

Pretty sure I have a couple of these calculators out in the garage from my dad's stuff. Perhaps a manual as well

 

Reminds me of the Cylon fighters that require three pilots. The survivor said "we were about to take a vote when the ground came up and hit us".

I had a early pocket calculator, they must have meant over coat pocket size. A few years later I got one the size of a credit card with a built in solar cell.

 

The characters on the top faces of the keys appear to be made of in-layed plastic so they won't wear off over time. They aren't just painted on. The blue characters on the lower faces are painted but they don't get wear.

 

I knew it right away just from the spiral bound booklet. I love the HP calculators with Reverse Polish Notation. We got issued the HP 15c scientific calculator at West Point - once you learn RPN you can't go back to the = sign. I still use the HP 12c financial calculator at work every day.

 

The current model HP12c uses the same key design as their scientific calculators of 40 years ago - same colours, fonts and labels. If not for the LC display, you'd think the HP12c was a 1970s calculator. That's a tribute to the people who came up with the design back then. ..... much like the classic design of the Speedmaster

 

I took a class in engineering economic analysis while in college - we were allowed to use a financial calculator for that one, so I bought an HP 19 BII. That thing was ahead of its time: portrait clamshell design, full text keyboard on the left side, larger lcd screen, programmable, etc. The professor was fine with us mapping out the solutions to problems then just showing the answer - that calculator basically got me an A in that class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-19B#/media/File:HP_19B.jpg

 

I remember when the language used for complicated equations in analog computers was so time consuming that professional math wizards were on call to do the job if there were any sort of time factor.
They couldn't work anywhere near as fast as a computer but they didn't require a programmer.

 

My HP 33C got me through high school math and AP physics. I still have it, stored carefully with the battery pack outside it. I also have a HP 32S and 19B II, plus RPM calculator apps on my computer at home and at work.

My geometry teacher one day when we got to our trig unit was determined to show that the calculator user could easily mess up the order of operations, so she called on me and gave me very complicated calculation to do, taking about 10 minutes on the calculator. If it was a TI calculator with 34 parenthesis she would probably have been right. But it was RPN and I worked right through it to the correct answer.