A just-started series of videos, setting out to repair not one but two 9100B machines and learning about how they work in the process. Here’s the first, a gentle introduction:
It’s an amazing machine, the 9100B. For an overview, see the old calculator museum: Hewlett Packard 9100B Programmable Electronic Calculator
The development of the HP 9100 calculators is an amazing story. Technology author Steve Leibson has done an incredible job of telling this story. For anyone interested in this fascinating read, check out The 9100 Project.
This is the machine which gave rise to Bill Hewlett’s suggestion (or demand!) to make a scientific calculator to fit in a shirt pocket, which of course became the HP35.
This was one of a very few times that I used whatever power I had to pressure Paul and Tom to change their minds about what they wanted to be doing for the next couple of years. I told them that if they were sure we could not do a shirt pocket calculator, then they would have to explain their reasons to Bill Hewlett because I had already told him that we could do it.
