Milestones:Development of the HP-35, the First Handheld Scientific Calculator, 1972 and LP and 45 RPM Records: Difference between pages

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The LP and the 45

10-inch LP

The long playing (LP) record and the 45-rpm disc were two different approaches to high fidelity music, introduced by two different companies in the late 1940s. Since the beginning of the phonograph, most records had played for about two or three minutes. Sometimes record companies issued longer recordings on large, 12-inch discs. But when the RCA Company began work on an improved disc in the mid-1940s, they stuck to the idea that a record should not have to hold more than one song. In order to make the disc smaller than the 10-inch, 78-rpm discs used since the 1890s, they reduced the speed to 45-rpm and used a much finer groove. This meant that they could pack in more grooves in a smaller space. They used a new plastic material, called vinylite, which resulted in the playing stylus picking up less noise and hiss. World War II interrupted this work, but the new 45-rpm disc and its player were introduced with great fanfare in late 1947.

At about the same time, CBS Record Company (the successor to Columbia Phonograph Company established in the early days of the phonograph) introduced its 12-inch, 33 1/3-rpm, long playing record. The development of the LP dates back to 1945, and was the work of CBS research director Peter Goldmark and other engineers at CBS. It was also made of vinyl plastic, and had very fine grooves, but it was a different size and speed than the 45-rpm and could not be played on the same phonograph without modifications. The LP was not intended to hold short songs like the 45-rpm, but was for classical music, which often ran for 20 minutes or more without a break.

Collection of Sun Records 45s

Within a few years, however, most record companies had adopted both the LP and the 45-rpm formats, using the 45-rpm for singles and the LP for classical albums. Engineers easily adapted record players to accommodate both types of discs as well as the older 78-rpm singles. Soon, record companies discovered that the growing popularity of Broadway show tunes and movie soundtracks helped LP sales, because these types of recordings were usually released as sets of discs called albums. These albums (now just a single disc) were so profitable for the record companies that they began releasing more and more popular music on LP rather than as singles. After phasing out the 10-inch, 78-rpm disc around 1958, record companies heavily promoted both the LP and the 45-rpm disc. Sometimes, when songs made famous on the radio were available only on an LP and not a 45-rpm disc, sales of the more expensive LPs could be quite high. The growth of LP sales in the 1960s and 1970s transformed the record business, generating large profits and restoring the industry to the place it had held in the early 1920s before radio was introduced.

The arrival of the compact disc in the 1980s severely curbed production of LP and 45 discs. Sales of both dropped quickly and most major label record companies stopped releasing them in large amounts by the early 1990s. However, both are still being produced to this day. Vinyl thrives in underground music scenes and niche collector markets, and is still commonly used by DJs for mixing in a live setting. Within the last ten years, vinyl has experienced a minor resurgence in the mainstream, with many of today's top 40 artists issuing their records on vinyl formats with a limited pressing run.

Your Surest Selling Job

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Late 1940s advertisement for new RCA Victrola.

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-== Development of the HP-35, the First Handheld Scientific Calculator, 1972  ==
+== The LP and the 45 ==
-''The HP-35 was the first handheld calculator to perform transcendental functions (such as trigonometric, logarithmic and exponential functions). Most contemporary calculators could only perform the four basic operations – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The HP-35 and subsequent models have replaced the slide rule, used by generations of engineers and scientists. The HP-35 performed all the functions of the slide rule to ten-digit precision over a full two-hundred-decade range.''
+[[Image:Vinyl record LP 10inch.JPG|thumb|right|10-inch LP]]
-Developed by Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California at 1501 Pagemill Road and introduced in 1972, the HP-35 was the first full-function, shirt-pocket-sized, scientific calculator. This invention revolutionized the profession by allowing the engineer to make almost instantaneous, extremely accurate scientific calculations, at his home, office or in the field. Three to five hours of continuous use could be expected from a fully charged battery pack.
+The long playing (LP) record and the 45-rpm disc were two different approaches to high fidelity music, introduced by two different companies in the late 1940s. Since the beginning of the [[Phonograph|phonograph]], most records had played for about two or three minutes. Sometimes [[Mass Producing Records|record companies issued longer recordings on large, 12-inch discs]]. But when the RCA Company began work on an improved disc in the mid-1940s, they stuck to the idea that a record should not have to hold more than one song. In order to make the disc smaller than the 10-inch, 78-rpm discs used since the 1890s, they reduced the speed to 45-rpm and used a much finer groove. This meant that they could pack in more grooves in a smaller space. They used a new plastic material, called vinylite, which resulted in the playing stylus picking up less noise and hiss. World War II interrupted this work, but the new 45-rpm disc and its player were introduced with great fanfare in late 1947.
-<br>
-[[Image:HP 35 Milestone invitation001.jpg|thumb|left|250px]]
-<br>
-The HP-35 was the innovative culmination of mechanical design, state-of-the-art technology, algorithm development and application; all unique at the time
+At about the same time, CBS Record Company (the successor to [[Columbia Record Company|Columbia Phonograph Company]] established in the early days of the phonograph) introduced its 12-inch, 33 1/3-rpm, long playing record. The development of the LP dates back to 1945, and was the work of CBS research director [[Peter Goldmark|Peter Goldmark]] and other engineers at CBS. It was also made of vinyl plastic, and had very fine grooves, but it was a different size and speed than the 45-rpm and could not be played on the same phonograph without modifications. The LP was not intended to hold short songs like the 45-rpm, but was for classical music, which often ran for 20 minutes or more without a break.
-After the development of the HP-9100 desktop scientific calculator in the mid 1960s, Bill Hewlett, president of Hewlett-Packard envisioned the idea that HP could develop the same capability that would fit in his shirt pocket. Every few months he would walk into the corporate labs and ask how the team was doing? He stressed how important it was to get the calculating power of the desktop in his fingers.
+[[Image:Sun Records 45s.jpg|thumb|right|Collection of Sun Records 45s]]
-Although semiconductor density was increasing yearly, bipolar technology was never going to be suitable, too power hungry and not small enough. Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) promised high density and low power but was still in its infancy. However this didn’t stop Bill Hewlett from getting the Industrial Design group of HP Labs to mock up some ideas of shape, key layout, etc. The solid state laboratory was also working on LED displays with molded encapsulated lenses for magnification driven by low power bipolar driver circuits.
+Within a few years, however, most record companies had adopted both the LP and the 45-rpm formats, using the 45-rpm for singles and the LP for classical albums. Engineers easily adapted record players to accommodate both types of discs as well as the older 78-rpm singles. Soon, record companies discovered that the growing popularity of Broadway show tunes and movie soundtracks helped LP sales, because these types of recordings were usually released as sets of discs called albums. These albums (now just a single disc) were so profitable for the record companies that they began releasing more and more popular music on LP rather than as singles. After phasing out the 10-inch, 78-rpm disc around 1958, record companies heavily promoted both the LP and the 45-rpm disc. Sometimes, when songs made famous on the radio were available only on an LP and not a 45-rpm disc, sales of the more expensive LPs could be quite high. The growth of LP sales in the 1960s and 1970s transformed the record business, generating large profits and restoring the industry to the place it had held in the early 1920s before radio was introduced.
-By 1970 a PMOS architecture looked promising as a candidate for scientific algorithms; a binary coded decimal (BCD) adder and 13 digit plus sign (56 bit) long multiple words in a serial circulating shift register (race track) arrangement that was very efficient of both chip size and power. The microcode word length was 11 bits; during final development shortened to 10 by having only an inferred conditional branch, a ten percent reduction in circuitry was significant at the time. The fourteen digits would just be sufficient for ten digit accuracy with an overflow or carry digit and two guard digits while still retaining sign information throughout the algorithmic iterations. The result could be displayed as either a signed mantissa and two signed exponent digits or variable length fixed point. The product had an arithmetic and register chip, control and timing circuit and several ROMs. A clock rate of 200 KHz was sufficiently high to calculate a transcendental function within a second.
+The arrival of the compact disc in the 1980s severely curbed production of LP and 45 discs. Sales of both dropped quickly and most major label record companies stopped releasing them in large amounts by the early 1990s. However, both are still being produced to this day. Vinyl thrives in underground music scenes and niche collector markets, and is still commonly used by DJs for mixing in a live setting. Within the last ten years, vinyl has experienced a minor resurgence in the mainstream, with many of today's top 40 artists issuing their records on vinyl formats with a limited pressing run.
-The HP-35 was truly a product which you knew would be successful because the engineer at the next bench wanted it.
+== Your Surest Selling Job ==
-The ubiquitous slide-rule was obsolete within a year; the HP-35 could do all the functions of the slide-rule to ten digit precision and determine the decimal point or power of 10 exponent through a full two hundred decade range.
+{{#widget:YouTube16x9|id=DOBeEb8ZY2s</youtube>
-Hewlett-Packard Co. (Palo Alto, Calif.) received the IEEE Corporate Innovation Recognition honor in June 1989 for "the creation, development and introduction of the first full-function, shirt-pocket-sized, scientific calculator"- the HP-35.
+Late 1940s advertisement for new RCA Victrola.
-Forbes ASAP magazine called the HP-35 one of the twenty products that changed the modern world. The HP-35 and its descendants would sell more than 20 million units for Hewlett-Packard, making them the most popular products in the company’s history.
+[[Category:Engineering and society|Records]] [[Category:Leisure|Records]] [[Category:Music|Records]] [[Category:Consumer electronics|Records]] [[Category:Audio systems|Records]] [[Category:News|Records]]
-From the computer history museum: in 1972 Hewlett-Packard announced the HP-35 as "a fast, extremely accurate electronic slide rule" with a solid-state memory similar to that of a computer. The HP-35 distinguished itself from its competitors by its ability to perform a broad variety of logarithmic and trigonometric functions, to store more intermediate solutions for later use, and to accept and display entries in a form similar to standard scientific notation.
-Excerpt from the original manual; "The objective in developing the HP-35 was to provide a high precision portable electronic slide rule; something only fictional heroes like [[Technology in the James Bond Universe|James Bond]], Walter Mitty or Dick Tracy are supposed to own.
-The HP-35 has far more computational power than previous pocket calculators. Its ten digit accuracy exceeds the precision to which most of the physical constants of the universe are known. It will handle numbers as small as 10^-99 and up to 10^99 and automatically places the decimal point. It is the first pocket calculator to offer transcendental functions like logarithms and sines and cosines. The operational stack and the reverse "Polish" (Lukasiewicz) notation used in the HP-35 are the most efficient way known to computer science for evaluating mathematical expressions.
-The HP-35 was designed with the user, in mind. As much time was spent on the keyboard layout, on the choice of functions, and on the styling as was on the electronics."
-At the time, many of the companies producing calculators could build adequate circuits and firmware, but didn't have the experience or facilities to make a well designed housing, keyboard, and display. Many of these brand-X machines were very failure-prone and quite crude in design.
-By contrast, the packaging of the HP-35 was of major importance. Its size, looks, keyboard, and display were all carefully thought out. The keyboard is divided into groups with different sizes, color and placement of nomenclature. Even differing amounts of contrast were used to separate groups. (The most used groups had the greatest contrast level.) The keys were made in a double mold process with the legends going all the way through the keys so they could never wear off. The keyboard panel used an HP-developed spring contact which used bent beryllium copper strips. The key bottoms were designed to be easy on the copper while still providing the right feel which is essentially unchanged in current calculators.
-The HP-35, like all the hand-held HPs that followed, was required to remain undamaged after falling three feet onto concrete on each of its corners. The case had sculpted sides, such that the top caught the light and the bottom was in shadow making the calculator look thinner than it really was. All screws were hidden.
-Length: 5.8" - Width: 3.2" - Height: 1.3" - Weight: 8.7oz
-The milestone plaque is located in the lobby of building 3U at the Hewlett-Packard laboratories, 1501 Page Mill Rd, Palo Alto, California, adjacent to where the development occurred.
-'''See also:''' [[First-Hand:Origins of Hewlett Packard 35 (HP-35)|Origins of Hewlett Packard 35 (HP-35)]]
-== Map ==
-{{#display_map:37.4118, -122.1478~ ~ ~ ~ ~Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA|height=250|zoom=10|static=yes|center=37.4118, -122.1478}}
-[[Category:Profession|Calculator]] [[Category:Engineering education|Calculator]] [[Category:Educational technology|Calculator]] [[Category:Calculators|Calculator]]
-[[Category:Educational_technology|{{PAGENAME}}]]