vi Introduction
On August 15, 1979, HP announced updates to the HP-33E and HP-38E
models to include continuous memory (named the HP-33C and HP-38C). HP
also announced the HP-34C, an entirely new model in the Series E calculator
family. This model, like those that had gone before, was programmable, but
did not have external storage. Instead, it too relied upon continuous memory
to retain programs and data. The HP-34C was able to adjust memory between
program and data storage. The default was to have 70 bytes of program
memory space and 21 data registers. These data registers would be
converted to program memory automatically as a user entered a longer
program, up to the point of having 210 program bytes available with one
permanent data register remaining.
The HP-34C incorporated new, built-in features that were never before
available on a handheld calculating device. The HP-34C included a
generalized solve feature. Users would enter a program evaluating a function
and when _ was executed, it would attempt to find a value where the
function was equal to zero—a root of the function.
For example, the user can write a short program to
evaluate x
2
- 4 and then input a range between 1 and
5 as an estimate for the root, and then execute
_. A result of 2 is returned for the root, a value
of x where the function is equal to zero. No previous
calculator had ever had a built-in function that would
do this so easily, although programs had previously
been written to do it.
The other groundbreaking feature on the HP-34C was
the ability to numerically integrate a function entered
as a program, between an upper and a lower limit.
There had been long user programs written in the past
that would apply various approaches to evaluating an
integral numerically, but the HP-34C was designed to
evaluate the numeric integral of any user-entered program if at all possible.
Thus if a short program were entered that computed 1/x, the user could enter
a lower and upper limit of integration, say 1 and 6, and then execute the f
function on the keyboard. The HP-34C would perform the integration if
possible, in this case displaying 1.7918 to four decimal places, the natural log
of 6, the correct answer.
Whole classes of problems could now be solved on a handheld calculator with
an ease of use that had never been seen before. The problem was that this
calculator, and all the other models previously introduced other than the HP-
HP-34C
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