5 ms·

HP 12C English Calculator

26 points by leonry 4y ago

qull 4y ago
I own one, and the way it works suits loan and interest calculations to a t. I has a niche, but within it it is the defacto standard. I encourage everyone to learn RPN!
leonry 4y ago
Alternative version: HP 12C Platinum Calculator (https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-12c-platinum-calculator https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-12c-platinum-calculator)
- kfitch42 4y ago
  So the choices are "English" or "Platinum"? I guess English is a color scheme and/or material?
  - hyperrail 4y ago
    I think English just refers to the language for the package labels and manual. Nothing to do with the calculator itself.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > I think English just refers to the language for the package labels and manual. Nothing to do with the calculator itself. They should make a calculator that works with English natural language numbers: compute eight plus four twelve
      - mwcremer 4y ago
        They do, it's called "COBOL."
    - copperx 4y ago
      At first I thought it referred to the comma as a decimal separator, but then I remembered the English also use a period.
- roberte3 4y ago
  The problem with the 12c Platinum, is that it was a "ground-up" rewrite, and is actually slower than the early 80s 12c.
  - anikom15 4y ago
    It’s slower? Any proof of that? I believe it is slower than the most recent revision of the 12C, but it’s certainly faster than the original 12C. The Platinum has many more registers which I find outweighs the improved speed of the current 12C. The stack push behavior of the Platinum also helps make programs a little shorter from my experience.
rbanffy 4y ago
It's remarkable that the finance crowd is so attached to this anachronistic tool. It's almost as if the C-64 were the favorite tool for writers, and Commodore still made it just because of that. But then, the life and blood of the global financial system runs on Excel, so I'm not sure why I would be surprised by this. In retrospect, we should have gotten them addicted to Lisp machines and Silicon Graphics workstations ;-)
- woodruffw 4y ago
  We're not far: I spend most of my day pushing text streams around in a terminal. Vi(m) and Emacs are still two of the most popular editors.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > Vi(m) and Emacs are still two of the most popular editors They are the two I use most frequently, but I don't think they are popular outside our niche. It kills me to see programmers on Windows using Notepad++.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > It kills me to see programmers on Windows using Notepad++. It kills me to see programmers on Windows using Notepad.
- ChuckMcM 4y ago
  I can sell you one out of my desk drawer for half that :-) The interesting thing is that they do what they do well, "boot" instantly, and can be carried in the pocket. When a company I was with was being acquired pretty much every one of the auditors had one of these in their pocket. They knew exactly what sequence of presses would answer the question they needed answer.
  - tgv 4y ago
    That's pretty important. When I needed a mortage last year, I wrote a small mortgage app (in Swift). While it's useful if you always need to enter the same set of numbers, a more flexible app would come with all kinds of UX problems: do I make it fast or do I guide the user? Do I try to cram all time based finances in the same interface, or are there different pages? Etc. And all of a sudden, it has become too complex for lay users, and too unwieldy for frequent users. A simple app suits the former, a calculator that only needs a few presses the latter. If everyone has the same device, even better.
snowmanak 4y ago
A great app that emulates this calculator is vacinno financial calc
felix318 4y ago
I still have my HP 11C, the engineering equivalent, from my school days. It is still a joy to use, the build quality, the feel of the keys, the RPN system. The thing is almost 40 years old and it looks like new. Sure, it’s totally anachronistic but the heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of.
- MegaDeKay 4y ago
  Same here, only I have a 15C. Still works perfectly. I think I have changed the batteries in it twice since I got it around 1984 despite using it regularly. I swear it is solar powered.
- Animats 4y ago
  I still have an HP 11C on my desk. Still running on coin cells from the previous century. The 12C is used because it can directly calculate present value, which is an integral over an interest rate. That's a non-trivial calculation that everyone who deals with the time value of money needs.
haunter 4y ago
Vaguely related: Canon X Mark I, mouse + calculator in one. I saw some people in finance using this and they really liked it (afaik works with SAP and Excel too) https://www.canon.com.hk/en/product/catalog/productItemDetails.do?categoryID=24&seriesID=505&prrfnbr=200169 https://www.canon.com.hk/en/product/catalog/productItemDetai...
rmellow 4y ago
The HP 12C is an excellent example of "Calm Technology"[0]: 1. "Communicate information without taking the user out of their environment or task". The display shows a single number: either the answer to your question or your current input. I don't need to worry about running out of battery or charging it, as I only need to once every few years. I don't need to think about my 12C except when I need to answer a finance question. I don't need to turn it off "correctly", I just turn it off. 2. "Gives people what they need to solve their problem, and nothing more". Basic math plus special purpose finance functions. No notifications, input history, cloud saves, Share button, upsells, political statements or otherwise claim they're making the world better, achievements or pretty but functionless UI. 3. "Moves easily from the periphery of our attention, to the center, and back". When I'm discussing a scenario, I don't need to sit down at a computer and design a spreadsheet. The functions in 12C are concise and operate quickly, showing the answer to one question at a time. 4. "Technology should amplify the best of technology and the best of humanity". 12C doesn't use ML to guess poorly what the user is trying to do, suggesting autocompletes and "are you sure" or "you mean...". It respects that the user knows what they're doing. 5. "Technology can communicate, but doesn’t need to speak". The display on 12C is minimal but shows everything you _need_ to know: the single number in front of you. 6. "Technology should work even when it fails". It either works or doesn't, no incorrect numbers reported, no missing functionality. Even when the battery dies, it will give me ample opportunity to do something about it before it actually happens, as the display dims gradually over weeks. 7. "The right amount of technology is the minimum needed to solve the problem". 8. "Technology should respect social norms". The 12C can be at the center of a conversation, and even help move a conversation forward by answering questions; I don't need to bury my face in a laptop while talking with someone, so it doesn't look like I'm ignoring them or that I've shifted my attention elsewhere; while I'm typing in numbers, it's obvious they're the numbers we're talking about. It respects the norms/customs of the field their customers work in: no need to type enter formulas for PV, FV, IRR. [0]: https://calmtech.com/ https://calmtech.com/
- smarks 4y ago
  Good list. I’d add the following: * Requires virtually no system administration. It seems like every other piece of technology needs some setup, backups, periodic updates, or fiddling when something inevitably goes wrong. If I’m not mistaken the 12C doesn’t have a clock. Thus, it doesn’t need to be updated 2x a year for Daylight (Summer) time, nor to have its time zone tables updated. It doesn’t need a clock; there are plenty of other ways for me to find the time, thank you. Not having a clock is a feature! Too many devices have a clock that cannot be disabled. A clock that is set wrong is worse than no clock at all. Thus, a device with an unnecessary clock demands my periodic attention to ensure the clock is set correctly. About the only system administration necessary for the 12C is to replace the batteries. The batteries last for a very long time. As noted above, the 12C operates for a long time in a low battery condition, so you can choose to change the batteries when it’s convenient to do so.
bigmattystyles 4y ago
Nostalgia sells! There’s something so innocent about this. I often fall prey to it myself, that or restoring videos on YouTube.
protomyth 4y ago
Did anyone have the HP-16C? I was wondering what it had and if its features are in any of the other calculators?
- gt743268 4y ago
  I have a modern clone, the Swiss Micros DM-16L. Clone-wise, the display is better, the keyboard is worse, the software is emulated and faster. Useful when doing embedded programming, it's great at duplicating the behavior of actual machine instructions. Buttons for things like and, or, xor, not, shift, etc. You set your word size, then poke through calculations and get the same overflow/carry behavior, even with offbeat representations like 7 bit 2's complement. You can put it into a human-compatible fixed point mode to do normal math. It's fine for some things that way, but no exponents or trig or scientific notation, barely more than 4 function really. Many of the newer RPN HP calculators include these functions, however all the computer math things are done with multi-button soft key presses or menu selections instead of dedicated buttons. I also have a TI Programmer. Inferior from a practical point of view, as it has many fewer functions. But it's fun to play with as it has one of those early red LED displays.
anikom15 4y ago
No one has mentioned that this calculator is programmable. The programming is keystroke with gotos and simple x=0 branching. It’s absurdly useful and easy to use.
golem14 4y ago
SwissMicros (not affiliated) has nice clones of many HP calculator models. https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42

26 points by leonry 4y ago

qull 4y ago

I own one, and the way it works suits loan and interest calculations to a t. I has a niche, but within it it is the defacto standard. I encourage everyone to learn RPN!

leonry 4y ago

Alternative version: HP 12C Platinum Calculator (https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-12c-platinum-calculator https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-12c-platinum-calculator)

kfitch42 4y ago
So the choices are "English" or "Platinum"? I guess English is a color scheme and/or material?
- hyperrail 4y ago
  I think English just refers to the language for the package labels and manual. Nothing to do with the calculator itself.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > I think English just refers to the language for the package labels and manual. Nothing to do with the calculator itself. They should make a calculator that works with English natural language numbers: compute eight plus four twelve
    - mwcremer 4y ago
      They do, it's called "COBOL."
  - copperx 4y ago
    At first I thought it referred to the comma as a decimal separator, but then I remembered the English also use a period.
roberte3 4y ago
The problem with the 12c Platinum, is that it was a "ground-up" rewrite, and is actually slower than the early 80s 12c.
- anikom15 4y ago
  It’s slower? Any proof of that? I believe it is slower than the most recent revision of the 12C, but it’s certainly faster than the original 12C. The Platinum has many more registers which I find outweighs the improved speed of the current 12C. The stack push behavior of the Platinum also helps make programs a little shorter from my experience.

rbanffy 4y ago

It's remarkable that the finance crowd is so attached to this anachronistic tool. It's almost as if the C-64 were the favorite tool for writers, and Commodore still made it just because of that. But then, the life and blood of the global financial system runs on Excel, so I'm not sure why I would be surprised by this. In retrospect, we should have gotten them addicted to Lisp machines and Silicon Graphics workstations ;-)

woodruffw 4y ago
We're not far: I spend most of my day pushing text streams around in a terminal. Vi(m) and Emacs are still two of the most popular editors.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > Vi(m) and Emacs are still two of the most popular editors They are the two I use most frequently, but I don't think they are popular outside our niche. It kills me to see programmers on Windows using Notepad++.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > It kills me to see programmers on Windows using Notepad++. It kills me to see programmers on Windows using Notepad.
ChuckMcM 4y ago
I can sell you one out of my desk drawer for half that :-) The interesting thing is that they do what they do well, "boot" instantly, and can be carried in the pocket. When a company I was with was being acquired pretty much every one of the auditors had one of these in their pocket. They knew exactly what sequence of presses would answer the question they needed answer.
- tgv 4y ago
  That's pretty important. When I needed a mortage last year, I wrote a small mortgage app (in Swift). While it's useful if you always need to enter the same set of numbers, a more flexible app would come with all kinds of UX problems: do I make it fast or do I guide the user? Do I try to cram all time based finances in the same interface, or are there different pages? Etc. And all of a sudden, it has become too complex for lay users, and too unwieldy for frequent users. A simple app suits the former, a calculator that only needs a few presses the latter. If everyone has the same device, even better.

snowmanak 4y ago

A great app that emulates this calculator is vacinno financial calc

felix318 4y ago

I still have my HP 11C, the engineering equivalent, from my school days. It is still a joy to use, the build quality, the feel of the keys, the RPN system. The thing is almost 40 years old and it looks like new. Sure, it’s totally anachronistic but the heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of.

MegaDeKay 4y ago
Same here, only I have a 15C. Still works perfectly. I think I have changed the batteries in it twice since I got it around 1984 despite using it regularly. I swear it is solar powered.
Animats 4y ago
I still have an HP 11C on my desk. Still running on coin cells from the previous century. The 12C is used because it can directly calculate present value, which is an integral over an interest rate. That's a non-trivial calculation that everyone who deals with the time value of money needs.

haunter 4y ago

Vaguely related: Canon X Mark I, mouse + calculator in one. I saw some people in finance using this and they really liked it (afaik works with SAP and Excel too) https://www.canon.com.hk/en/product/catalog/productItemDetails.do?categoryID=24&seriesID=505&prrfnbr=200169 https://www.canon.com.hk/en/product/catalog/productItemDetai...

rmellow 4y ago

The HP 12C is an excellent example of "Calm Technology"[0]: 1. "Communicate information without taking the user out of their environment or task". The display shows a single number: either the answer to your question or your current input. I don't need to worry about running out of battery or charging it, as I only need to once every few years. I don't need to think about my 12C except when I need to answer a finance question. I don't need to turn it off "correctly", I just turn it off. 2. "Gives people what they need to solve their problem, and nothing more". Basic math plus special purpose finance functions. No notifications, input history, cloud saves, Share button, upsells, political statements or otherwise claim they're making the world better, achievements or pretty but functionless UI. 3. "Moves easily from the periphery of our attention, to the center, and back". When I'm discussing a scenario, I don't need to sit down at a computer and design a spreadsheet. The functions in 12C are concise and operate quickly, showing the answer to one question at a time. 4. "Technology should amplify the best of technology and the best of humanity". 12C doesn't use ML to guess poorly what the user is trying to do, suggesting autocompletes and "are you sure" or "you mean...". It respects that the user knows what they're doing. 5. "Technology can communicate, but doesn’t need to speak". The display on 12C is minimal but shows everything you _need_ to know: the single number in front of you. 6. "Technology should work even when it fails". It either works or doesn't, no incorrect numbers reported, no missing functionality. Even when the battery dies, it will give me ample opportunity to do something about it before it actually happens, as the display dims gradually over weeks. 7. "The right amount of technology is the minimum needed to solve the problem". 8. "Technology should respect social norms". The 12C can be at the center of a conversation, and even help move a conversation forward by answering questions; I don't need to bury my face in a laptop while talking with someone, so it doesn't look like I'm ignoring them or that I've shifted my attention elsewhere; while I'm typing in numbers, it's obvious they're the numbers we're talking about. It respects the norms/customs of the field their customers work in: no need to type enter formulas for PV, FV, IRR. [0]: https://calmtech.com/ https://calmtech.com/

smarks 4y ago
Good list. I’d add the following: * Requires virtually no system administration. It seems like every other piece of technology needs some setup, backups, periodic updates, or fiddling when something inevitably goes wrong. If I’m not mistaken the 12C doesn’t have a clock. Thus, it doesn’t need to be updated 2x a year for Daylight (Summer) time, nor to have its time zone tables updated. It doesn’t need a clock; there are plenty of other ways for me to find the time, thank you. Not having a clock is a feature! Too many devices have a clock that cannot be disabled. A clock that is set wrong is worse than no clock at all. Thus, a device with an unnecessary clock demands my periodic attention to ensure the clock is set correctly. About the only system administration necessary for the 12C is to replace the batteries. The batteries last for a very long time. As noted above, the 12C operates for a long time in a low battery condition, so you can choose to change the batteries when it’s convenient to do so.

bigmattystyles 4y ago

Nostalgia sells! There’s something so innocent about this. I often fall prey to it myself, that or restoring videos on YouTube.

protomyth 4y ago

Did anyone have the HP-16C? I was wondering what it had and if its features are in any of the other calculators?

gt743268 4y ago
I have a modern clone, the Swiss Micros DM-16L. Clone-wise, the display is better, the keyboard is worse, the software is emulated and faster. Useful when doing embedded programming, it's great at duplicating the behavior of actual machine instructions. Buttons for things like and, or, xor, not, shift, etc. You set your word size, then poke through calculations and get the same overflow/carry behavior, even with offbeat representations like 7 bit 2's complement. You can put it into a human-compatible fixed point mode to do normal math. It's fine for some things that way, but no exponents or trig or scientific notation, barely more than 4 function really. Many of the newer RPN HP calculators include these functions, however all the computer math things are done with multi-button soft key presses or menu selections instead of dedicated buttons. I also have a TI Programmer. Inferior from a practical point of view, as it has many fewer functions. But it's fun to play with as it has one of those early red LED displays.

anikom15 4y ago

No one has mentioned that this calculator is programmable. The programming is keystroke with gotos and simple x=0 branching. It’s absurdly useful and easy to use.

golem14 4y ago

SwissMicros (not affiliated) has nice clones of many HP calculator models. https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42