alt Hacker NewsHP re-releases classic computer science calculator: The HP-16C
Comments
Who is the audience for this? I was a big fan of HP calculators at the time. Guilty of RPN snobbery and in posession of the passed by nth generation photocopy 'synthetic programming' document. I still have my 41CV even though it has not been turned on in 20 years.
But a fake lookalike 'collectors edition' of a device that can have only nostalgic sentimental value? Why does this exist? Who falls for this?
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!
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.
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 already own the SwissMicros DM41X, DM42, DM15L, and DM16L. Excellent quality devices, and built like absolute tanks! Picking up any of them will leave you astonished, a DM41X (or DM42) with its anodized metal back plate feels like it weighs at least 2x a TI-89 Titanium. I have as many of the HP-41C module files as I could find on MoHPC and other sites stored in my DM41X. They are all very high quality devices, I can't recommend them enough!
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
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.
For me, custom calculator capabilities is one of The top 5 reasons to carry a mobile computing device in my pocket.
I have too many calculator apps I hardly use, but nevertheless .. love to collect.
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.
What's going on with tech companies now releasing "limited editions" or "limited runs" of a calculator? I find that a hit ridiculous. Not long ago there was a post on a japanese made Casio laccquered calculator that costs a fortune. Have people started to collect calculators?
I found an HP-12c at Savers for like $2 about 2 years ago! It's a "financial calculator" and I don't really know how to use it :-)
I have the clones from swiss micros.
https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm16c
They are more portable and really good.
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 got mine from my father for high school graduation. It is one of my most prized personal posessions.
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...
I was never able to get into RPN, but I always heard great things about these.
I might even buy this in spite of the horrible "Collector's Edition" marking (who designs these things? this font is terrible), but somebody would need to try the keys and tell us if they cheaped out on the keyboard again.
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 never thought the HP of today would do this. 20+ years ago, I was first enamored by a 16C a much older coworker owned. Sometime after that, I bought one on eBay for around $100 (IIRC). Inflation adjusted, this reissue is a deal!
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.
Probably runs in an emulator on a modern MCU and still has more performance than the original.
I wish they would re-release the HP50-g, I had one somewhere but it got lost and I _loved_ that thing!
It still blows me away that the original HP 15/16 series has reports of a single set of silver oxide batteries lasting over a decade without having to be replaced.
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…
Not coded in Rust? No AI?? No age verification??!
Gosh I need one so badly. Used ones are up to about 500USD.
Pity the international shop is down
Give me a 48 and we'll talk.
My 50-year-old HP-21 with red LED display still works. I'm very fond of it. RPN forever!
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.
With this and Casio's S100X-JC1-U is there some kind of retro calculator fever?
I need to unload my bomar mx100 calculator.
But my 11c is still perfect.
It's always interesting that they use ARM chips to emulate the original firmware.
117 USD if ordered before July 31.
Absolutely love HP calculators. Almost fourty years ago, my HP28s introduced me into programming in RPL, a stack based Forth like language combined with elements from Scheme (Lisp), and symbolic calculation. It was a language that was way ahead of its time, nothing I had seen in Pascal or C. Only a few years later in Mathematica. From there I learned Scheme, and was introduced to the book SICP. All of this had a lasting effect on how I program and think.
HP started my journey so to speak :)
I also had one of those mentioned in the article, just for nostalgia. Rock solid, RPN based, lovely product. The kind of product companies do not build anymore (products that will last you a lifetime)
Maybe for $49 (maximum), I would buy this, but $116.96 (on sale; $129.99 if not) is too much. There is no RAM in this thing; why so expensive?!
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...
This is cool, but I am a HP-42S forever person
HP 20S or GTFO
oooh. i have an original. it doesn't have the 'Collector's Edition' etching. Does that make it a fake?
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.
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.
[flagged]
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