On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 01:41:57 -0500, Don Foreman
wrote:


One 32SII has been my shop/lab workhorse for over a decade. The
buttons are still legible, all but one anyway. Lately some of the
buttons got to be intermittent. Got out the "backup" 32SII I
spotted (and glommed) in a bookshop years ago after HP had quit
making them. There were none to be had here but this bookshop was
on a back street in Ghent, Belgium.


The 32S II problem is the contacts from the keyboard to the circuit
board. They've got a fairly standard flexible printed circuit
connector held down with foam in them. This gets a little bit of
corrosion on it and the connection gets wonky. The real problem is
that HP made these calculators really difficult to take apart. If you
do try to take one apart there's some melted plastic post type
connections under the keyboard metal cover. Of course there's the rub
because taking glued on cover off without hurting it is a little
tricky. I did mine and got it to function 100% again. But I've never
gotten around to doing a proper reglue of the metal cover. I've just
got some clips bent from wire holding it down. Not the most elegant
but it's doing the job so far.

I got the replacement 33s this last week. Some nice features but who
ever did the keyboard layout should be shot. It's also just a little
bit larger than the 32S II and does not fit in a shirt pocket as well.
I wish I could get another couple of 32S II without paying the
ridiculous going price on ebay. That's got to be the best shop
calculator ever made.

I still miss my old 31E. It had all the important functions in a
uncluttered keyboard.

After looking at a picture of the 42s I bet it's the same as the 32s
II on the problem. I agree with the complication. I had it's
predecessor the 41CV and never liked it at all.

Wayne Cook
Shamrock, TX
http://members.dslextreme.com/users/waynecook/index.htm