I'm a lifelong fan of HP calculators. I have a 15c in front of me right now that I've had since the mid-ish 80s. Still works perfectly.
But the 15c 'Collector's Edition' had some issues, and I wonder about the build quality and reliability of this new one, too. Plus: my guess is you can get an original working 16c on eBay for less than this is going to cost.
My wife and I were mid '80s chemical engineers. She liked her 15c, but I went on afterward into fundamental numerical analysis and was extremely happy with my 32S. I recently asked qwen3.6:35b|qwen3.6:27b|gemma4:31b (can't remember which one) all about the current state of replacement LR44 batteries for an "HP 32S Scientific Calculator". It was fucking adamant, aggressively so, that the calculator required 1 battery. LOL no, it sits before me and yes it needs 3. A 6 pack cost I dunno $6 off AMZ? Anyway I have now replaced the batteries in my daily tactile basic algebra calculator for the third time. If I don't have it in hand I use Free42. I... regret not remembering how to program these things, it was so intellectually elegant.
I logged on for the first time in a while to actually talk about nerd things. God I loved the 80s-2000.
They are doing this also for the science version, the 15C.
I bought a 15C in the 1980s, and have enjoyed it ever since. It is like a rock. Despite being treated roughly over the years, nothing is wrong with it apart from some dents in the metal parts and my name, scratched on the back. I suppose I've replaced the batteries a couple of times, but that's it. This thing just refuses to die.
The main thing is that the keys still work like on day 1. And I've never seen a calculator with keys like this, with such feedback that you never need to worry about double-presses or missed-presses.
I just love the thing. If it died, I'd buy one of these new versions in a flash. But I think it will outlast me!
> The main thing is that the keys still work like on day 1. And I've never seen a calculator with keys like this, with such feedback that you never need to worry about double-presses or missed-presses.
This is also the thing I'm most suspicious of with all these retro remakes - it's the physical hardware aspects that get screwed up so often.
If they get this right it would be legitimately surprising.
I would get one of these in a hot minute except that my HP-16C that I got sometime in the '80's is still going strong! I rarely use it anymore but a couple of years back I was working on an app that involved bit-twiddling and the 16C fired right up and was immediately helpful.
HP calculators were an important part of my formative years. I have a 12C, 15C, and 16C (all original models). I also have an HP-35 (red LED digits) within reach right now. That was the calculator I used for high school exams, because we weren't allowed "programmable" calculators so I had to go a bit retro for the time.
The 16C was an interesting model. It had a lot of potential capability with the different word sizes and bitwise operations, but I think it fell short in practice because the operations it could do just weren't that useful.
My favourite model is the 15C, it got me through four years of math, physics, and computer science university classes. The integration and matrix functions were super useful because it was hard to do some of that stuff in your head.
I have an original HP11C within reach. Still works. Had to replace the batteries this year, after 20 years.
If you replace the batteries, get the good Panasonic silver cells from Newark, not "compatible" alkaline cells. The silver cells were intact after two decades.
I believe it is the only official HP licensee for calculators and some former HP calculator employees work with them. This is as close as a legacy HP calculator comes today.
I think HP sold their calculator business to this company. I bought the iOS version of the 15C emulator directly from HP many years ago, but the app store changed it to this company.
I remember seeing some article about HP's calculator office in Australia or somewhere shutting down much to employees' frustrations, so I guess this "HP Licensee" thing is the happy ending for that arc.
I have one of the originals. It's useful if you do low-level programming a lot, and in a pinch you can also use it as a standard calculator. The biggest limitation is that the screen can only show 8 digits. In binary mode, this can be awkward if you're working with variables that are more than 8 bits. The calculator has functionality for scrolling around the number that's being displayed to try to work around this, but it's still a little annoying compared to newer calculator designs that can show more digits at once.
HP generously gave me a 16C at the end of an internship. It was a weird beast! Amazing a simulating different types of integer arithmetic. Not at all a replacement for the 11C, 12C, or 15C.
I did never use a 16C, but I have a 42 at home and use it very often. It goes so far, that I also have the 42 app on my phone as a replacement for the default calculator app. I am using RPN, and I think I'm the only one in my age category that does (at least none of my friends who studied ever heard of RPN) - it's such a superior way to calculate. I usually have problems to work with a "regular" calculator due to being used to it "4, enter, 5, times" instead of "4 times 5".
If this would be a 42, I would definetely buy it. My 42 is a gift from my father and time did not only good to it.
/edit switched UPN to RPN, as I got the translation wrong
You might want to consider iHP48 app, it is my goto phone/tablet calculator running a 48 ROM. My goto desk calculator is the DM42, though I occasionally use my 50g for units or on the iHP48 app instead.
This must be the original "mac vs Windows" divide: I could never get my head around HP calculators. TI all the way. SR-52, TI-59/58. Sinclair if budget was tight. That said, I do have an HP-85C...
If this uses similar parts as the HP-15C Collector’s Edition in 2023 (which seems likely), then be advised that it doesn’t match the quality of the original in terms of display, key feel, and key labeling (colors). The back side of the 15C CE is also pretty ugly in my opinion [0] compared to the original [1].
The originals (I still have my 1987 HP-15C) used silicon-on-sapphire technology, normally used for space, that ensured the amazing battery life. The keyboard domes had a complicated fabrication process to ensure optimum feel. The keycaps were double shot for durability. No modern calculator is going to be made to that standard, it would cost at least $1000.
I loved the keyboard on my HP-48G. It had such a nice crisp tactile feel to the key presses - a bit of snap - that I got to where it could usually operate it by touch without looking.
(These days it's stored safely away with batteries removed, so I don't use it that much anymore. For convenience, I usually just use either Droid48 on my phone, or Emacs Calc at my computers.)
I used a 33C in HS and college. Finally in med school during my diversion into the lab, something happened to the little bubble display. And had to upgrade to an 11C.
The beauty of an RPN calculator was that nobody asked to borrow it.
I had the Hp15c (and still have) but always deeply longed for the hp28s, which was the first to implement a lisp-like programming language in a calculator. Had I bought that one, who knows how different my computing life would have been…
Ugh same. I had a 49g and a 49g+ in high school. The 49g broke down and the other got robbed when my student room got burgled a couple years later.
Learned a lot of RPN programming on those things!
I saw one in the wild a couple months back but had to say it didn't live up to my memories. Super slow and clunky interfaces compared to our modern touch screens.
hp48 is still on Android for free, as HP released the ROMs to public domain while they were still an awesome company. The unit converter is still very handy. =3
Obviously it does not have the tactile feedback of the original. But it’s a far cry from using on a desktop with a mouse.
Using a REPL as a replacement does not mimic the experience, I don’t think. Not for me at least.
Mind, I’m talking a generic REPL. Like a CL REPL or similar, obviously not some custom calculator REPL.
First off, you’re missing the stack, which is significant. CL can almost mimic this with , *, and *. But while it provides a free, handy value store, it’s not the same. You’d end up with contrivances like:
(* * **)
Then there’s the value of the special keys (i.e. SIN et al, gives a new feeling to the term “function key”).
So, for me, a calculator and its hand held form factor, especially something like the high end HPs, go hand in hand.
No doubt someone could (and likely has) code up a dedicated calculating experience, but a generic REPL I find to be unsuccessful in that role.
If you want to use a REPL as a pleasant calculator you really want an APL-family language or a modern concatenative language like Factor. Sexprs are horrendously verbose in comparison.
I still have my 16C, and it still works perfectly. I got it in a swap for a 15C and 11C, so I got the reissue 15C when it came out, and it's not up to the quality of the original.
if that's true, it seems really wasteful honestly. why not reimplement the functionality using a native instruction set rather then emulating some other processor?
That seems extremely efficient to me. That'd be a bad way to build a brand new calculator, perhaps, but the quickest way to get an existing, what, 40 year old?, firmware up and running with the least number of gotchas.
I doubt there are competent and cost-effective engineering teams in existence who could exactly match HP's numeric libraries in a $150 calculator that's guaranteed to sell a tiny number of units.
I would love a programmers' calculator but I really hate RPN. I wish they would make one without it. Back in the day they did it for efficiency. But that's no longer an issue these days.
I do still have a mint HP48GX but never use it for the same reason. The successor the 49 had normal math as an option but it was not as iconic.
RPN felt so weird and alien to me, and then one day I felt my brain pivot, and now it's the only method I can bear. RPN isn't just more efficient for the calculator to process. I mean, it is, but that's not the selling point. It's way more efficient to use. It requires the least number of keystrokes necessary to enter a formula, and never requires parentheses for grouping. You can start at the innermost nested, hairy bits of a formula, then quickly work your way outward. That's the part I love and would hate to be without.
Yeah I understand. For me I just never could get my head around it. My brain doesn't work that way, and I'm the kind of person that always needs to bend their tools to them rather than absorb a new way of working. For example, I deeply hate opinionated software where you have to learn the workflow the developer intended. It can be powerful but I don't work that way. I have my own ideas how something should work and I adapt my tools to it.
RPN but also something like Gnome doesn't match. So I use things like KDE that have huge amounts of configurability. I also deeply hate processes and methodologies at work and I often ignore them leading to endless stress for my more bureaucratic coworkers :)
TL;DR, me not liking RPN doesn't mean I think it's bad. It's just not for me and that is more a 'me' thing than an RPN thing.
Nah, I get it. I have a streak of stubbornness, too. Just saying, in this specific case, the odd way to do it has real, genuine advantages and isn't just odd for the sake of being odd. It's not so much an opinion as a philosophy.
If the opportunity arises, I urge you to try making yourself use it for a few days and powering through it. If that a-ha moment comes to you, it changes how you look at arithmatic in general. Or it may never happen, and that's OK, too.
I felt the same and got a Casio CM-100 that has similar functionality. Not as nice as the HP but it does the job. Much cheaper too if you can find one.
I absolutely love my HP48SX and HP48GX (I have both) and the RPN is what I like the most. But if you don't like RPN, just type a regular expression between simple quotes and evaluate it.
As I read it was also about including the highest amount of features in the tool. But to me it's more like Dvorak. Sure, it's more efficient if you learn it and really absorb the mehtod but most people don't bother.
Personally I'm not very flexible in that way, I want my tools to adjust to me not the other way around.
But the 15c 'Collector's Edition' had some issues, and I wonder about the build quality and reliability of this new one, too. Plus: my guess is you can get an original working 16c on eBay for less than this is going to cost.
Honestly, it pains me to say it but I'd recommend a SwissMicros DM16L instead: https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm16l
I logged on for the first time in a while to actually talk about nerd things. God I loved the 80s-2000.
I have a 50g that I haven't used extensively, and a DM42n here on my desk at work (which I still don't use extensively, but aspire to).
I bought a 15C in the 1980s, and have enjoyed it ever since. It is like a rock. Despite being treated roughly over the years, nothing is wrong with it apart from some dents in the metal parts and my name, scratched on the back. I suppose I've replaced the batteries a couple of times, but that's it. This thing just refuses to die.
The main thing is that the keys still work like on day 1. And I've never seen a calculator with keys like this, with such feedback that you never need to worry about double-presses or missed-presses.
I just love the thing. If it died, I'd buy one of these new versions in a flash. But I think it will outlast me!
This is also the thing I'm most suspicious of with all these retro remakes - it's the physical hardware aspects that get screwed up so often.
If they get this right it would be legitimately surprising.
The 16C was an interesting model. It had a lot of potential capability with the different word sizes and bitwise operations, but I think it fell short in practice because the operations it could do just weren't that useful.
My favourite model is the 15C, it got me through four years of math, physics, and computer science university classes. The integration and matrix functions were super useful because it was hard to do some of that stuff in your head.
[1] https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm16c
If you replace the batteries, get the good Panasonic silver cells from Newark, not "compatible" alkaline cells. The silver cells were intact after two decades.
Still nice to see, though the SwissMicros calculators are also very good and will be tough to compete with.
The specific ergonomic feel of those buttons remains unrivaled.
If this would be a 42, I would definetely buy it. My 42 is a gift from my father and time did not only good to it.
/edit switched UPN to RPN, as I got the translation wrong
[0] https://commerce.hpcalc.org/images/15c-ce-back-medium.jpg
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/HP-15C_C...
(These days it's stored safely away with batteries removed, so I don't use it that much anymore. For convenience, I usually just use either Droid48 on my phone, or Emacs Calc at my computers.)
The beauty of an RPN calculator was that nobody asked to borrow it.
But my 11c is still perfect.
In high school it was mind blowing.
But I didn't do anything serious with programming. Normal languages seemed annoying, usr/rpl useless limited as it was to a 4 bit calculator.
Maybe if someone had told me usr/rpl is just lisp. But, it's for the best. I loath computer screens today.
(Edited) Actually it's not so much the door but the housing.
Learned a lot of RPN programming on those things!
I saw one in the wild a couple months back but had to say it didn't live up to my memories. Super slow and clunky interfaces compared to our modern touch screens.
Pity the international shop is down
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ab.x48&hl=...
Obviously it does not have the tactile feedback of the original. But it’s a far cry from using on a desktop with a mouse.
Using a REPL as a replacement does not mimic the experience, I don’t think. Not for me at least.
Mind, I’m talking a generic REPL. Like a CL REPL or similar, obviously not some custom calculator REPL.
First off, you’re missing the stack, which is significant. CL can almost mimic this with , *, and *. But while it provides a free, handy value store, it’s not the same. You’d end up with contrivances like:
Then there’s the value of the special keys (i.e. SIN et al, gives a new feeling to the term “function key”).So, for me, a calculator and its hand held form factor, especially something like the high end HPs, go hand in hand.
No doubt someone could (and likely has) code up a dedicated calculating experience, but a generic REPL I find to be unsuccessful in that role.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dc_%28computer_program%29
I still remember the way the buttons made a nice tactile thunk as you pushed them.
I doubt there are competent and cost-effective engineering teams in existence who could exactly match HP's numeric libraries in a $150 calculator that's guaranteed to sell a tiny number of units.
I do still have a mint HP48GX but never use it for the same reason. The successor the 49 had normal math as an option but it was not as iconic.
RPN but also something like Gnome doesn't match. So I use things like KDE that have huge amounts of configurability. I also deeply hate processes and methodologies at work and I often ignore them leading to endless stress for my more bureaucratic coworkers :)
TL;DR, me not liking RPN doesn't mean I think it's bad. It's just not for me and that is more a 'me' thing than an RPN thing.
If the opportunity arises, I urge you to try making yourself use it for a few days and powering through it. If that a-ha moment comes to you, it changes how you look at arithmatic in general. Or it may never happen, and that's OK, too.
Personally I'm not very flexible in that way, I want my tools to adjust to me not the other way around.