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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

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!
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      There are parts of Microsoft OOXML spec (now an ISO standard) that say something very much like "If you get this kind of data, do whatever Word 6.0 does".

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!
  - rbanffy 11y ago
    There are parts of Microsoft OOXML spec (now an ISO standard) that say something very much like "If you get this kind of data, do whatever Word 6.0 does".