Calculator blog

I cannot help but buy calculators that I like. The other day I spotted a 1987 HP12c calculator in quite good shape. It was still working, but the battery low indicator was blinking all the time. The way the calculator looked, it had not been used too often - so the batteries may have even been original! These calculators' batteries really lasted f...

Let's try another speed comparison for the HP15c Collector's Edition, this time with a financial workhorse for financial duties: the HP12c (original version)

We will compare the time to calculate the inter...

We have recently reduced the price of most HP calculators, due to higher volume:

• HP Prime goes from 189,99€ to 144,99€, 21% VAT included.
• HP17bII+ goes from 94,95...

As promised, here you will have some tests on the HP12c - old and new. 

We will not compare arbitrary tests, since these are very unlikely to happen for a typical HP12c user (the image I have of a HP12c is a no-nonsense business or banker user, who will not spend his life programming mathematical converging algorithms. He will instead comput...

In the last blog installment I was testing different calculations for amortization in different calculators, in particular several versions of the ubiquitous HP12c. This was due to a doubt on the accuracy - that ended up being dependent on the decimal setting, when preparing some tutorial for loan calculations with the HP12c

Most of the work was done on the newest HP12c. For all practical purposes and calculations, this HP12c is instantaneous. There is no waiting no matter the calc...

While preparing some explanations on how to use the TVM feature of the HP1...

I have been using the new HP12c for some time already. My main challenge with some HP calculators of late has been that, w...

I have been using the new HP12c model that we opened in a previous blog issue. As financial user, I an drawn to the HP19bII back door that is on my desk, but when I travel (quite often), it is too big a calculator to move around, and to lay on a desk. It just uses too much real state. The HP17bII+ is better in that regard, but just slightly. There is something about landscape calculato...

(note: some pictures will be re-taken with better light)

As it has been said many times, this approach to the HP10b was a complete success. They started with the proven ATMEL ARM-based core used also on the HP12c, and they programmed it from scratch: not just applying a firmware layer on the Saturn emu...

I just wanted to compare the performance of the just arrived version of the HP12c with the latest one, running the 2015 firmware. 

Both units are different from the original one (and around 150 times faster) but also different from the so-called HP12c+ that was produced around 2008. Both have an Atmel ARM-derived processor, but the newer model is far less energy consuming. Both can be reprogrammed (if you have the right firmware) and have the same connector, but the former use...