5 ms·

The rebirth of the HP-12C: How one man reimagined a calculator from 1981

63 points by elemeno 11y ago

twakefield 11y ago
I spent a lot of money on a Finance degree. Then I got my first job and they gave me one of these calculators along with the manual [1]. I then realized that everything I had learned was distilled down to this little booklet. It was a shocking realization. I still have and use it. It's a good example of great design. [1] http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/cache/299940-0-0-225-121.html http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/cache/299940-0-0-225-121.htm...
- bitdiddle 11y ago
  I couldn't agree more. My first boss gave me the HP-12C as a year end gift back in 1985. I still use it once a week or so or anytime I need to do a bond calculation. I'm still on the original battery, kid you not! I love the feel of the keys.
PhantomGremlin 11y ago
In prehistoric days, engineering students carried slide rules. Fortunately, just as I entered college, HP came up with the original scientific calculator, the HP-35.[1] Shortly later, HP introduced the HP-45, a significantly improved variant. I still remember taking $422.65 ($395 plus 7% tax) to HP's sales office in an upper floor of the Exxon building in NYC in order to buy one. These things weren't available at Best Buy (probably because Best Buy didn't happen until 1983). :-) The 1970s and 1980s were the heyday of HP calculators.[2] But all good things come to an end. I think it was Carly Fiorina that killed the calculator division, but I could be wrong. I still have a few working HP calculators from the old days, but typing "python" at a terminal prompt is usually more convenient. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-35 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_calculators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_calculators
- joezydeco 11y ago
  I still covet my 42S, but now it's safely in a drawer while I use Free42 on iOS. It's a beautiful thing. http://thomasokken.com/free42/ http://thomasokken.com/free42/
- eitally 11y ago
  My story is similar, but a few years later. My dad used his 12C for years, then bought me a 32SII for Christmas one year. A few years after that, I bought a 48 in high school (and suffered the whole time because the teachers assumed everyone had a TI82 and knew nothing about RPN). I know there are emulators, but there's nothing like a physical calculator.
- auxym 11y ago
  Recent mechanical engineering grad here, I use my (new model) 35s on a daily basis. Despite being somewhat cheaply built ('5' button broke early, still works but now wiggles around), I couldn't do without physical buttons and especially RPN. I'm also a heavy user of python for data crunching, but they're just different tools for different jobs. Now, that DM-15L is tempting. Bit expensive, but tempting. A boss of mine, during a co-op internship, still had an original 15c on his desk and banged on it daily. Great engineer. As a last aside, for a terminal RPN calc app, my favorite has been 'orpie' for a while, check it out, I think it's built in Ocaml too, which should satisfy HN FP-fetishists.
MegaDeKay 11y ago
I still have the HP-15C I got back in 1990 and use it regularly. The keyboard still works perfectly and I've only changed the batteries in it two or three times. The only thing wrong with it is a rubber foot or two that has fallen off the back. Absolutely amazing.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  My dad talked by out of my 11c by buying me a 35s.
- jhallenworld 11y ago
  I like the construction of these calculators, but I'm not a huge fan of the programming language. I think the Casio FX-4000P / RS EC-4020 was the pinnacle, but this was a few years later (and admittedly, not as numerically good as the HP). Editing was far easier with the dot-matrix display. Compare the programs: http://www.rskey.org/CMS/8-programmable-calculators/299-fx4000p http://www.rskey.org/CMS/8-programmable-calculators/299-fx40... http://www.rskey.org/hp15c http://www.rskey.org/hp15c Casio improved the fx4000p, but I think the design was not as coherent: http://www.rskey.org/fx4500p http://www.rskey.org/fx4500p
- buserror 11y ago
  You can buy perfect replacement rubber feet on ebay, theres a very nice seller there (from canada if I remember correctly)
Zombieball 11y ago
Not sure this is a legitimate article title. As far as I understand the 12C has always been in production. You can buy it to this day at Staples. The 16C which is also made by swissmicros is more of a rebirth. Original ones sell for a pretty penny on eBay. It would be great if HP legitimately brought the 16c back though as one of the large appeals of a physical calcutor is the quality of the hardware itself.
- ryanhuff 11y ago
  While the 12c has been sold for years, they did release an upgrade version a few years ago which is much faster. I believe one of the gripes of this was the keys had the symbols painted on. Not sure if this article is referencing this
- buserror 11y ago
  After having my 16C stolen a long while back, it took me years to source another at a 'reasonable' price. It's around $300 for a 16C in good condition these days.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  Large part of the cost is the tooling. The tooling to build a modern 12C is pretty much the same one would need to build the 10, 15 and 16 versions. But they would be low volume items. Few engineers who grew up without them would adopt a pocket calculator. The 12C is still alive because, it would seem, finance people are very resistant to change.
  - a3n 11y ago
    The rules of rounding in some state's real estate environments are actually specified in terms of what you can choose on this calculator; you're required to use one particular choice. I imagine the calculator is embedded even deeper in more financial-oriented environments.
    - Zombieball 11y ago
      I didn't quite understand what the article meant when it says some documents and contracts reference the calculator and its manual. I suppose this is an example. That's crazy!
doggydogs94 11y ago
I noticed that I have an HP 12-C along with the spiral bound instruction book.
Animats 11y ago
What "rebirth"? HP still sells the 12C. It's at WalMart and on Amazon. I still have an original HP 11C, the "scientific" model with trig functions instead of present value. Works fine, and I use it occasionally. The batteries were last replaced in the 1990s. The record battery life is now 22 years and counting. HP was very proud of the quality of those calculators. You cannot wear off the lettering on the keys; it goes all the way through the key.
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
I have an HP-41C. The buttons are nearly perfect. I would love to have a modern version of it. I bought a new HP33 for some unknown reason. It is garbage. The buttons are horrible.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I don't need an HP-41C any longer and have resisted trying to get mine repaired for that reason. But I find the keyboard just about perfect, I bought another high-end HP model at one point (28S) and never cared for the keyboard or ergonomics generally. I still have a couple of the 12C and related models around and they work fine for when I want a calculator with real buttons.
- incepted 11y ago
  The HP-41 was fascinating for an obscure reason called "synthetic programming". It was a series of key presses and operations that unlocked a mode in the calculators that allowed you to do all kinds of things that were never allowed in the first place, such as controlling individual pixels on the screen. It was absolutely magical http://www.hpmuseum.org/prog/synth41.htm http://www.hpmuseum.org/prog/synth41.htm
  - ihuk 11y ago
    If you have HP-48/49 you can get an HP-41 emulator from http://www.hrastprogrammer.com/emulators.htm http://www.hrastprogrammer.com/emulators.htm. You can do synthetic programming on it.
rebootthesystem 11y ago
Let's see: 2 HP-41's 1 HP-41C 1 HP-41CX 1 HP-48gx 1 HP-49g 1 HP-16C 1 HP-32S 1 HP-48S 1 HP-35S 1 HP-200LX 1 HP-Prime All in perfect condition, manuals, original boxes, accessories. Yeah, I've been into the RPN thing for quite some time. Favorite? The 35S sits by the CNC machining center inside a zip-loc bag to keep oil and metal shavings off of it. Desk-side is mostly the 41CX. One of the things nobody has mentioned yet is how much better the 41's LCD display is when compared to ALL other HP calculators, excluding Prime. I tend to do a lot of coding and CAD work under subdued lighting. The 41's display is very easy to see just with the monitor's illumination. The other's suffer from low contrast LCD's that are hard to see outside bright office environments. Prime is self lit so that's not a problem. I had a couple of others but gave them away. One was an HP-50g and the other was a folding model, just can't remember the model number. Yeah, HP has made some, well, less than great calculators.
- Zombieball 11y ago
  I did a bit of research about the 41c after reading your endorsement. It seems they also had plugable ROM modules you could buy loaded with various functions and programs! Do you happen to have any? I'm curious to hear what your opinion of them is.
  - rebootthesystem 11y ago
    Yes, I do. I'd have to dig them up but I remember a mechanical design module as well as an electrical design module. You could also plug in other things into those ports. I have a magnetic card reader that was used to save and load your programs. There's also a little printer and an expanded I/O interface. I haven't looked at some of this stuff in years.
bambax 11y ago
I bought a 12C "anniversary edition" some years ago; it's fantastic. You can still buy them (they're listed on Amazon) so it's not clear why the article mentions "rebirth": the thing's not dead!!

63 points by elemeno 11y ago

I spent a lot of money on a Finance degree. Then I got my first job and they gave me one of these calculators along with the manual [1]. I then realized that everything I had learned was distilled down to this little booklet. It was a shocking realization. I still have and use it. It's a good example of great design. [1] http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/cache/299940-0-0-225-121.html http://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/cache/299940-0-0-225-121.htm...

bitdiddle 11y ago
I couldn't agree more. My first boss gave me the HP-12C as a year end gift back in 1985. I still use it once a week or so or anytime I need to do a bond calculation. I'm still on the original battery, kid you not! I love the feel of the keys.

PhantomGremlin 11y ago

In prehistoric days, engineering students carried slide rules. Fortunately, just as I entered college, HP came up with the original scientific calculator, the HP-35.[1] Shortly later, HP introduced the HP-45, a significantly improved variant. I still remember taking $422.65 ($395 plus 7% tax) to HP's sales office in an upper floor of the Exxon building in NYC in order to buy one. These things weren't available at Best Buy (probably because Best Buy didn't happen until 1983). :-) The 1970s and 1980s were the heyday of HP calculators.[2] But all good things come to an end. I think it was Carly Fiorina that killed the calculator division, but I could be wrong. I still have a few working HP calculators from the old days, but typing "python" at a terminal prompt is usually more convenient. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-35 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_calculators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_calculators

joezydeco 11y ago
I still covet my 42S, but now it's safely in a drawer while I use Free42 on iOS. It's a beautiful thing. http://thomasokken.com/free42/ http://thomasokken.com/free42/
eitally 11y ago
My story is similar, but a few years later. My dad used his 12C for years, then bought me a 32SII for Christmas one year. A few years after that, I bought a 48 in high school (and suffered the whole time because the teachers assumed everyone had a TI82 and knew nothing about RPN). I know there are emulators, but there's nothing like a physical calculator.
auxym 11y ago
Recent mechanical engineering grad here, I use my (new model) 35s on a daily basis. Despite being somewhat cheaply built ('5' button broke early, still works but now wiggles around), I couldn't do without physical buttons and especially RPN. I'm also a heavy user of python for data crunching, but they're just different tools for different jobs. Now, that DM-15L is tempting. Bit expensive, but tempting. A boss of mine, during a co-op internship, still had an original 15c on his desk and banged on it daily. Great engineer. As a last aside, for a terminal RPN calc app, my favorite has been 'orpie' for a while, check it out, I think it's built in Ocaml too, which should satisfy HN FP-fetishists.

MegaDeKay 11y ago

I still have the HP-15C I got back in 1990 and use it regularly. The keyboard still works perfectly and I've only changed the batteries in it two or three times. The only thing wrong with it is a rubber foot or two that has fallen off the back. Absolutely amazing.

aidenn0 11y ago
My dad talked by out of my 11c by buying me a 35s.
jhallenworld 11y ago
I like the construction of these calculators, but I'm not a huge fan of the programming language. I think the Casio FX-4000P / RS EC-4020 was the pinnacle, but this was a few years later (and admittedly, not as numerically good as the HP). Editing was far easier with the dot-matrix display. Compare the programs: http://www.rskey.org/CMS/8-programmable-calculators/299-fx4000p http://www.rskey.org/CMS/8-programmable-calculators/299-fx40... http://www.rskey.org/hp15c http://www.rskey.org/hp15c Casio improved the fx4000p, but I think the design was not as coherent: http://www.rskey.org/fx4500p http://www.rskey.org/fx4500p
buserror 11y ago
You can buy perfect replacement rubber feet on ebay, theres a very nice seller there (from canada if I remember correctly)

Zombieball 11y ago

Not sure this is a legitimate article title. As far as I understand the 12C has always been in production. You can buy it to this day at Staples. The 16C which is also made by swissmicros is more of a rebirth. Original ones sell for a pretty penny on eBay. It would be great if HP legitimately brought the 16c back though as one of the large appeals of a physical calcutor is the quality of the hardware itself.

ryanhuff 11y ago
While the 12c has been sold for years, they did release an upgrade version a few years ago which is much faster. I believe one of the gripes of this was the keys had the symbols painted on. Not sure if this article is referencing this
buserror 11y ago
After having my 16C stolen a long while back, it took me years to source another at a 'reasonable' price. It's around $300 for a 16C in good condition these days.
rbanffy 11y ago
Large part of the cost is the tooling. The tooling to build a modern 12C is pretty much the same one would need to build the 10, 15 and 16 versions. But they would be low volume items. Few engineers who grew up without them would adopt a pocket calculator. The 12C is still alive because, it would seem, finance people are very resistant to change.
- a3n 11y ago
  The rules of rounding in some state's real estate environments are actually specified in terms of what you can choose on this calculator; you're required to use one particular choice. I imagine the calculator is embedded even deeper in more financial-oriented environments.
  - Zombieball 11y ago
    I didn't quite understand what the article meant when it says some documents and contracts reference the calculator and its manual. I suppose this is an example. That's crazy!

doggydogs94 11y ago

I noticed that I have an HP 12-C along with the spiral bound instruction book.

Animats 11y ago

What "rebirth"? HP still sells the 12C. It's at WalMart and on Amazon. I still have an original HP 11C, the "scientific" model with trig functions instead of present value. Works fine, and I use it occasionally. The batteries were last replaced in the 1990s. The record battery life is now 22 years and counting. HP was very proud of the quality of those calculators. You cannot wear off the lettering on the keys; it goes all the way through the key.

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

I have an HP-41C. The buttons are nearly perfect. I would love to have a modern version of it. I bought a new HP33 for some unknown reason. It is garbage. The buttons are horrible.

ghaff 11y ago
I don't need an HP-41C any longer and have resisted trying to get mine repaired for that reason. But I find the keyboard just about perfect, I bought another high-end HP model at one point (28S) and never cared for the keyboard or ergonomics generally. I still have a couple of the 12C and related models around and they work fine for when I want a calculator with real buttons.
incepted 11y ago
The HP-41 was fascinating for an obscure reason called "synthetic programming". It was a series of key presses and operations that unlocked a mode in the calculators that allowed you to do all kinds of things that were never allowed in the first place, such as controlling individual pixels on the screen. It was absolutely magical http://www.hpmuseum.org/prog/synth41.htm http://www.hpmuseum.org/prog/synth41.htm
- ihuk 11y ago
  If you have HP-48/49 you can get an HP-41 emulator from http://www.hrastprogrammer.com/emulators.htm http://www.hrastprogrammer.com/emulators.htm. You can do synthetic programming on it.

rebootthesystem 11y ago

Let's see: 2 HP-41's 1 HP-41C 1 HP-41CX 1 HP-48gx 1 HP-49g 1 HP-16C 1 HP-32S 1 HP-48S 1 HP-35S 1 HP-200LX 1 HP-Prime All in perfect condition, manuals, original boxes, accessories. Yeah, I've been into the RPN thing for quite some time. Favorite? The 35S sits by the CNC machining center inside a zip-loc bag to keep oil and metal shavings off of it. Desk-side is mostly the 41CX. One of the things nobody has mentioned yet is how much better the 41's LCD display is when compared to ALL other HP calculators, excluding Prime. I tend to do a lot of coding and CAD work under subdued lighting. The 41's display is very easy to see just with the monitor's illumination. The other's suffer from low contrast LCD's that are hard to see outside bright office environments. Prime is self lit so that's not a problem. I had a couple of others but gave them away. One was an HP-50g and the other was a folding model, just can't remember the model number. Yeah, HP has made some, well, less than great calculators.

Zombieball 11y ago
I did a bit of research about the 41c after reading your endorsement. It seems they also had plugable ROM modules you could buy loaded with various functions and programs! Do you happen to have any? I'm curious to hear what your opinion of them is.
- rebootthesystem 11y ago
  Yes, I do. I'd have to dig them up but I remember a mechanical design module as well as an electrical design module. You could also plug in other things into those ports. I have a magnetic card reader that was used to save and load your programs. There's also a little printer and an expanded I/O interface. I haven't looked at some of this stuff in years.

bambax 11y ago

I bought a 12C "anniversary edition" some years ago; it's fantastic. You can still buy them (they're listed on Amazon) so it's not clear why the article mentions "rebirth": the thing's not dead!!