Calculator blog

Dear customers,

The HP15c arrived to the warehouse last week and this Monday the first units were shipped to our customers. Please allow some days for the units to arrive to your homes!

I have received feedback from some Spanish and German customers that have already received their units. All of them (for the sake of clarity) have the same firmware as the previous "American" batch: 2011-4-15.

I received some days ago a mail from Japan, asking me if I intended to sell there, and making strange references to a T3 ad. I have never made any ad anywhere, except from google ads; so it was strange to me. 

Some time later I flew to Lisbon, and got a complimentary copy of the latest issue of T3, in Portuguese. Here is what I found, and imagine my surprise. I guess that the HP15c LE will be of higher interest for these folks!

It may be old story for many of you, but it still news for me. 

I have just made the move to Apple computers. I used apple for a brief stint in 1986 during university, then another one for a couple of years in 1995 (when my company's policies were not so much enforced, and I was able to get them to let me use a Mac), and then a number of years in the shadows until I decided that this company deserved a good dedicated machine.

It seems to me that Apple is this century's equivalent to what HP was in the eighties. The best available quality, people behind it willing to walk the extra mile to get the product right, fantastic design, etc. I find it surprising that there are so many of us (and by us I mean the people around the HP museum and HP calculators at large) deride Apple ethos and their products. Yes, it is true that Apple products are more design-oriented that HP's ever were; but there is the same attention to user friendliness, to have a seamless user experience, to get a "round" product; save for the time difference, the HP15c would have been an excellent Apple product.

Why this rant now?

As soon as I got my hands on the mac, I started to try to load calculator emulator software for HP machines, but I found that some of them were buggy (x41c for Mac, alpha version), some other were just for PowerPC processor machines, and I ended up using free42 for the time being.

I want to find a version of HP41 that works on my Lion OS machine, and an HP15c version as well (I need to install some of the usual suspects - I just dod not have the time yet)

But for the sake of exploring the machine, I opened the enclosed "calculator" application. When looking through the menus, I found that it had a programmer version, a scientific one, and an RPN mode for all of them! It even has an option for speech: you can set it to tell you the result, or any button you press. It is a well thought out utility - worthy of the HP ethos.

We have been informed that finally the HP15c will be arriving to Europe on the 2nd half of January 2012. Shipment to final customers on week 4 2012.

The sales price has been set at 109,99 €.  You can find it here:

HP 15c Limited Edition

The buyer will receive a substantial box, ideal for a gift to an engineer friend (my best engineer friend is myself, by the way), or as an exhibition box in your collection. Here you see it as you will receive it, with the plastic cover:

And here without it:

Once opened, this is what you see:

And here you have the calculator, together with an original unit:

The pouch is substantially better than the one in the 12c. I prefer it to the original as well - YMMV

There is a difference with the back: is black lettering on silver metal finish. It seems to have a vernis on top - after 3 months using it, it has not lost any part of the labeling.

It can be "repurposed", as any new 12c can. Please see the connector between the 2 batteries.

Please see here a close look:

I have just received a copy of the PPC ROM and Manual for the HP 41c/cv/cx

While all ROMs enhance the function set of the HP41c series, there are several outstanding. So far, my preferred by far was the advantage PAC. It moved the HP41c to HP15c territory - but not quite. 

The PPC ROM is an unassuming piece of hardware - identical to any other ROM. However, your opinion changes when you see the manual accompanying it. It has close to 500 pages (492 in my edition), and it is packed with all kind of functions. I have yet to go through it, but it looks as an early example of collaborative development -the sort that is giving us the likes of the wp34s and other open source software - but 30 years ago!

I am so excited with what I see that I would jump to conclusions too quickly. I have to go though the introduction pages (where I see names that appear very often in the HP museum forum) and get submerged in this great work.

As I am now travelling I can only read it - but this week end I will play with the hp41c, the ROM and the manual.

If you remember, some time ago we reviewed a project for a clone HP15c calculator made in Switzerland. While the project was extremely interesting, it had the worst possible timing: it coincided with the reissue of the HP15c by Hewlett Packard. With good sense, the creators backed off and re-thought the project, in order to give the user something more than the original did.

I am carrying the HP15c Limited Edition every day with me, and while its size is smaller than most calculators, it is a tight fit in my shirt's pocket, and it fits well in my jacket's; but sometimes I would like it to be smaller.

Enter the HP15cc:

First a pre-production sample

Then a more developed sample:

I look forward to get one. and you?

Today I was to participate as witness on a court case, regarding a termination of an individual from his job. The court case had high uncertainties for both parts, company and worker, so there was a strong interest in settling the issue.

The main discussion point was how to calculate the indemnity according to the Spanish method. Basically, you agree to an indemnity based on a number of days for seniority year or part thereof; topped by a number of salary months. The typical negotiation would be, "we offer you 30 days' salary for each seniority year, with a maximum of 16 months' salary", or "I want 45 days' salary for each seniority year, topped at 42 month's salary" (the legal limit when it is an unfair dismissal).

The problem was to discuss these items at the door of the court without a computer in sight. The fact that calculations should be done by lawyers did not help, either. 

Please salute the HP15c Limited Edition.

Due to my job, and in these sad days of restructuring, I had the program in LBL 3. Calculating his seniority by entering the initial and termination dates on two registers, and using the other variables at play, we were able to check at least 20 different options, with the judge waiting for us to agree, until we found one that left both parties "less unsatisfied". They finally agreed. 

It was clear for everyone there that it would have not been the case if there was no way to check the hypothesis on the fly, standing, at the court door.

Programmable calculators, 1 - computers 0.

There is room for calcs - sometimes.

I finally bought from Jurgen Keller an HP27s.

Probably one of the best calculators ever made, second only to the HP42s and the HP15c when it comes to feature set and usability (should I say "third" instead?). It is a pity that it is not RPN. The menus are logically laid out, and it sports options like TVM that make it an excellent all-rounder. As well, it beats the HP42s in the time menu (I wonder why the 42s did not have 1. a better solver like this or the 17bII's and 2. A time menu. I remember 20 years ago, during my MBA, using it as a wake up call  - there were no mobile telephones at that time (or the ones there were not really portable))

It is amazing the vitality in our admittedly small and "vintage" hobby. As soon as a new edition of a vintage calculator appeared, there have been people working on it.

I plan to give some of these HP15c calculators to my children (I will buy a decent stock of them for myslelf), but it is good that there is already a programming tutorial for it. I have included links to it in my Manuals and Support page. Thanks, Eddie for it!

HP15c Programming Tutorials from Eddie´s Math and Calculator Blog

Chapter 1: The Stack

Chapter 2: Basic Programming

Chapter 3: Registers

Chapter 4: Tests

Chapter 5: Subroutines

Chapter 6: Loops

Chapter 7: Solve and Integrate

Chapter 8: The summation program

Chapter 9: Derivatives

Chapter 10: Statistics

Chapter 11: Flags

Chapter 12: Memory and indirect registers

Chapter 13: Indirect Addressing and subroutines

Chapter 14: Complex numbers

I found this curious video while looking for self test documentation on HP calculators:

And I thought that the first stopwatch had to wait until HP41 time module!!