I just saw this great article and hope it resonates with others.
I just saw this great article and hope it resonates with others.
1 <enter> 1 + is 2.
Still have mine. Not quite as pretty as that one, but it works fine.
They’re still available...and still roughly the same price they were when I got mine 25-30 years ago.
I remember in the mid-70’s being frustrated with HP calculators’ RPN-Reverse Polish notation.
However, it was a huge deal when HP came out with a calculator that didn’t lose it’s memory after it was turned off.
A lambaste of mine had the first HP-45 on campus. Every electrical engineer just stared at it on his belt.
shows much of the old inventory. Reverse Polish notation; those were the days.
I’ve had several of those. Plus, I have my old HP-45 that I paid $125 for in about 1978. The battery died years ago but it still works if you plug it in.
Back in the 70’s, my dad bought one of the first plug in digital desktop calculators. It could add, subtract, multiply and even divide.
As I recall, he paid about $400 for it.
At the time he was an estimator for a commercial glass company so it was well worth the investment.
I was a TI man through and through. I saved up my pennies and bought a programmable TI SR-52 while I was in High School, 1977.
I wrote a couple of games based on physics equations we learned in HS Physics. They were rip-offs of BASIC games: Battleship, and Lunar Lander.
with Battleship, you were given a random distance to the enemy ship, and you had to input an elevation for the main gun. You shot, then the calculator would display how far your shell fell short or beyond your target, or if you hit. Once you hit it, it would display how many shots it took.
With lunar lander, you were given an altitude and vertical velocity, and fuel quantity. You entered a thrust amount from zero to 100. Then the calculator would give you a new altitude and vertical velocity, and new fuel amount. The object was to get altitude to zero within a narrow vertical velocity, before running out of fuel.
You really had to use your imagination when all you saw were digits.
80085
Haven’t had time to go through the entire article, but right off the bat, it’s wrong.
The HP-12C was NOT the first HP calculator with RPN.
I got the HP-35 in 1972 when it came out, and the HP-45 a year later, and both used RPN
The ‘35 was the first scientific calculator.
I’ve got a cheap Casio with a flip open vinyl cover. I keep it at my computer desk because it’s handy for banging out quickie calculations. I could just use the computer’s calculator but for some reason it feels clumsy using a mouse to type in the numbers.
Had mine since about the mid 80’s when I was required to get one for a college course in finance doing amortizations. Best calculator there is, mine still works perfectly. RPN makes more sense to me than non-RPN calculators.
I’ve sold many of these on eBay over the years.
It is as elegant as the photos suggest. Mainly old school types still swear by them even with far more capable apps available. Can’t say that I blame them.
Ah, the financial version?
Still have my 15C, you know, the weird scientific version.
Back in the 80s, I was never without my 41C at my desk or drafting table (and I had a 12 too), but they eventually gave out.
Fast forward to smartphone era, when screens became about the same size as a 41, you run an app, and it’s just like the real thing! Wellll....not quite. No tactile feedback, and the ‘key’ response isn’t very quick, so you’re always making mistakes and having to start over.
Finally decided I needed to go back to a real, physical calculator, but all the current ones suck, and lack tactile keys besides. Well, guess what! HE hasn’t forgotten all its old fossils! HP-35 for like (coincidentally) $35. Does Everything a 41 will do and more for like 5% of what I paid for my 41, inflation adjusted. I love that thing!
I had an 11c for decades. I also programmed in Forth in the 80s. Both were RPN. RPN just seemed natural.
I’m a 15C dude, 11C is okay ...
Have ‘em all, 12C too. Original 15C, HP 15C Limited Edition, and the Swissmicro 15C clone.
I have an HP 12C on my desk and another in my briefcase. I still have the first one that I bought in 1982 in a drawer. It works fine, but it is hard to make out the print on most of the keys and I lost the battery cover years ago.
I bot a perfect condition hp 12c at a garage sale for $5, with manual. I must confess I’ve never learned how to use it. By “use it” I mean have the confidence to, for example, make an offer on a piece of real estate using it.
I still have my trusty HP 16C. Hexadecimal rules!