Posted on 01/19/2004 8:49:58 AM PST by kennedy
In an industry where a year or two can be an eternity in a product's life span, one unsung product has stood the test of time.
While other companies were unveiling their latest futuristic gadgets at the recent Consumer Electronics Show, Hewlett-Packard Co. was showing off a relic: the little HP 12c calculator, which the company says is the oldest consumer electronic device still in production. It's still going strong.
H-P first started selling the financial calculator in 1981, the same year IBM Corp. introduced the personal computer. Today, with very few changes, the 12c is still H-P's best-selling calculator. With its mortgage-amortization and bond-calculation functions, it is as essential to many real estate salespeople as a smile and firm handshake.
When introduced, the calculator sold for about $150 -- more than $350 when adjusted for inflation. Today, it retails for about $70.
Dennis Harms was the project manager in H-P's research and development department who was responsible for rolling out the HP 12c.
One reason the device is still popular, he said, is that H-P got national testing boards to approve it and convinced schools and real estate groups to endorse it.
But the biggest reason the calculator has been so successful, Harms said, is its simplicity and reliability.
"You could put it in your shirt pocket, the batteries lasted forever, and it's all you ever needed," said Harms, who still works for H-P, now in its printer division. He said he still has a prototype version of the calculator and uses it frequently.
Fred Valdez, manager of H-P's calculator division, said the company regularly gets letters from customers with their HP 12c war stories.
A zookeeper wrote to tell the company how his calculator was eaten by a hippo but still worked -- after a little cleaning -- when it came out the animal's other end a few days later, Valdez said. Another customer wrote to say her 12c outlasted several marriages.
With testimonials such as these, there's no reason to quit producing the device, even in this age of all-in-one gadgets that can do everything the 12c does and more, Valdez said.
"We intend to keep it in the family," he said.
I also have an earlier HP-25 model which I once programmed for base conversions.
I agree...can't use TI (uses A.O.S. - alg. op. sys.) H-P s' are the Best...to bad they aren't as widespread today...cheaper, less capable calculators Dominate the market. I've got a H-P 49G (and 48GX).
I also have a TI Programmer whose battery failed a long time ago but included the connector for a regular 9v battery. Have been using it this way for about 18 years to do HEX & occasionally OCTAL (as well as just a regular 4 function calculator of course). Absolutely amazing these early calculators.
When I went to japan 10 years ago I saw an 8 pack of...
toilet paper
with a simple taiwanese four function calculator included in the package as a bonus (!!!)
Ditto. I have had a TI-35 since elementary school; first the battery-operated version, and then when I lost that about a year later, the solar-powered version, which is still going strong to this day, though I tend to rely more on the calculator function in my Pilot these days (despite being annoyed that its firmware doesn't have the scientific functions of its predecessor).
Pray for W and Our Brave Troops
Gotta agree.
I still use my HP-41CX, which I went out and bought immediately after using a "regular" calculator to crunch numbers from a wind tunnel lab. It cost $300 in 1983, and I've never once regretted the expense.
Excellent tip! I was talking with a co-worker just this past friday about RPN calculators and did a few searches looking for a good clone of the hp-12c. Xcalc aint pretty, but it's already there, and it works!
It is an amazing testament to the folks who engineered the 12c that the thing is still being sold, virtually unchanged after all these years. Of course, it was developed back when Hewlett and Packard were still there, and the company was run mostly my engineers. I've got an old "test and measurement" catalog from HP that has some amazing things in it. I always wanted an atomic clock of my very own.
An interesting sidebar about that atomic clock ($16,000)... In the notes on the page, it said it must be shipped overland to ensure accuracy of the clock as it was set at the factory, and the difference in the distance from the gravitational center of the earth experienced on an airplane would cause it to drift from "true" time by a measureable (though miniscule) amount during the flight.
IIRC, 10, 11 & 15 are engineering; 12 is financial; and 16 is boolean/hex/computer programmer.
Old Leeds & Northrup catalogs are pretty cool, too.
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