The HP 32S and HP 32SII are a series of scientific calculators sold by HP from the late 1980s to early 2000s.
| Predecessor | HP 15C |
|---|---|
| Successor | HP 32SII |
| Programming | |
| Other | |
| Predecessor | HP 32S |
|---|---|
| Successor | HP 33s |
| Programming | |
| Other | |
HP 32S
Code named "Leonardo", HP 32S was introduced on 1st June 1988 and discontinued by January 1991.
It was a relatively short-lived mid-range calculator that saw two revisions, the difference being an improved 12 digits 5x7 dot matrix LCD, with larger character size. Originally retailing for $70, there was also an anniversary edition for $50 for shareholders and employees only, the difference being largely cosmetic (with a commemorative plaque on the case).
The HP 32S was powered by a silicon-on-sapphire Saturn processor code named "Sacajawea" manufactured by NEC of Japan, with 512bytes built in RAM and 16KB built in ROM, clocked at 640kHz, shared with other mid-ranged pioneers (HP-14B, HP-22S)
The HP 32S sports a single shift key and thus most of its functions are driven via menus. Only single character alphabetical labels and variable registers are allowed. All instructions can be displayed (instead of their keycodes) and merged (e.g. RCL+ is considered one instruction), significantly improving ease-of-use. However, with only 384 bytes are available, and as each intruction and integer from 0-99 uses 1.5 bytes whereas all other numbers use 9.5bytes, programming complexity is extremely limited.
It also featured a RPN solver, capable of evaluating and finding zero of functions (given as programs) numerically, given initial assumptions.