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Calculator blog


Musings and comments about our common interest

 

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A new watch - and an old one...

Today we have seen announced the new Apple Watch. Impressive.

hp_blingBut many years ago, the clock to aim to was the HP01 digital clock. That was impressive at its time. It included a calculator, and it was a “tour de force” at the moment when hand-held calculators were starting to be used by engineers and high level students.

These machines command enormous prices nowadays - north of $1000 for good samples. These are purely collector’s items, since this machine has been improved upon by many orders of magnitude in all areas - except perhaps battery duration (when comparing with smartphones, that is)

You know that HP has issued a couple of years ago a number of anniversary devices. Some of them were new items called as the original one; but some others were real replicas of the real thing: the HP15c Limited Edition and the HP12c 30th Anniversary. These were nice niche products and, in the case of the HP15c Limited Edition, even though it was bug-ridden and memory limited (but same as the original), it has been outsold everywhere. Only 25000 units were produced (as far as I know, according to the serial numbers I have seen)

What if the HP 01 digital clock was produced again, as a collector item? (A very serious collector item - forget the $1000 level - think much higher…)

You’ll have to remember that you saw it here first…

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