HP re-releases classic computer science calculator: The HP-16C
hpcalcs.com103 points by dm319 5 hours ago
103 points by dm319 5 hours ago
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.
Honestly, it pains me to say it but I'd recommend a SwissMicros DM16L instead: https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm16l
The prices for all kinds of vintage electronics have shot out like crazy. Calculators, computers, cameras and other stuff are super expensive.
From what I’ve seen, eBay runs more than this for a used original. My collection of all Voyagers ran about $200 each a few years ago.
Why would that pain you to say it? (Honest question, not leading.)
Because I'm such a longtime fan of HP models.
Fair enough!
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).
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 also love my 15c ,used it for many years now i also have 1 on my KDE desktop it works just fine in wayland an in x11
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.
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.
Treated myself to a SwissMicros DM16C [1] while waiting for HP to re-relase the original.
Not a DM16L? I have all the DM*C models and most of the others, not sure about the DM16L though.
This is an HP licensee, not HP itself.
Still nice to see, though the SwissMicros calculators are also very good and will be tough to compete with.
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 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 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.
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 take a look at the SwissMicros DM42 and DM42n, they’re a modern reimplementation of the 42S. https://www.swissmicros.com/product/model-dm42n
Oh, that looks nice! Thanks! it's a bit early for christmas, but I'll keep that in mind :) .
I had a 42s, which to this day is my all time favorite calculator. I later “upgraded” to a 48sx, but never had the same love for it.
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.
I got mine from my father for high school graduation. It is one of my most prized personal posessions.
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.
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].
[0] https://commerce.hpcalc.org/images/15c-ce-back-medium.jpg
[1] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/HP-15C_C...
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.)
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 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…
I still have my 28s from the late 80s. Also really rugged except for the achilles heel of a battery door.
I wish they would re-release the HP50-g, I had one somewhere but it got lost and I _loved_ that thing!
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.
An HP 48S was my constant companion during engineering school and RPN was a lovely introduction to elegant expression-scaling.
The specific ergonomic feel of those buttons remains unrivaled.
With this and Casio's S100X-JC1-U is there some kind of retro calculator fever?
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.
Gosh I need one so badly. Used ones are up to about 500USD.
Pity the international shop is down
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
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ab.x48&hl=...
Most of the point is the button-feel, though. If I'm just gonna use a computer, I might as well use a full REPL.
I use hp48 app on the iPhone.
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:
(* * **)
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.
Running something like Julia in Termux is possible, but not a trivial install process. =3
Whoa! My parents had one from back in the day. I think one of their companies gave them out.
I still remember the way the buttons made a nice tactile thunk as you pushed them.
117 USD if ordered before July 31.
HP 20S or GTFO
It's always interesting that they use ARM chips to emulate the original firmware.
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.
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.
Yes that is true, but that only works in expression mode and that is not always suitable.
They did it for user efficiency, not machine efficiency. And it is still better today for hand calculation.
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.
It's an "official licencee" so it's not actually HP manufacturing it. Still, I'd love to get one if it feels like the original.