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"We were in a calculator division of Hewlett-Packard, at that time, and we viewed things as rolling every two years. No one would have expected the 12c to last so long, Harms says.
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"They're still running the code I wrote for the thing." "The inner workings are all the same," Harms says. HP marked the 30-year anniversary with the release of a limited-edition HP 12c, which costs $79.99 and comes with a gift box and a unique production number etched on the back. Still today, the 12c is one of only two calculators (the other is from Texas Instruments) that are authorized for use during certification exams by CFA Institute, an association of investment professionals. "You could sell a house based on the calculation of the 12c, and that calculation would hold up in a court of law." It's accepted as an industry standard," Harms says. "If two real estate agents sit down, they'll trust the mortgage calculations that they get on the 12c. With that certification, the 12c's results were considered legally accurate. The HP 12c team designed the calculations to be so precise that the 12c could receive certification by the federal Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology). That made them low power and made it so the batteries last forever in the thing."Įxceeding federal standards was another engineering priority. "Those two things were brand new for this calculator line. "A lot of technology was coming together right at that point in time," Harms says, citing the low-power CMOS chips and LCD displays. The calculator also made use of another emerging power-saving innovation: liquid crystal display (LCD) instead of light emitting diodes (LED).īy reducing its power requirements, the 12c could run on replaceable miniature batteries - which satisfied the fit-in-a-shirt-pocket requirement. The design team wound up moving to HP's plant in Corvallis, Ore., where the company was building a fabrication operation for a technology called complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS), which would reduce the 12c's power requirements.
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Anyone who wants to get it away from me has to practice first with something easier - like prying Charlton Heston's rifle out of his cold dead hands," posted Steve Finlay.ĭevelopment of the 12c started at HP's Advanced Product Division in Cupertino, Calif., where it wasn't uncommon for HP cofounder Bill Hewlett - who's known to have had a soft spot for calculators - to drop by the labs and check out new prototypes. "uh, your calculator is broken" b/c they don't know RPN! Owned mine for nearly 20 years still use it every day," posted a Facebook user by the name Ravi Nagarajan on the fan page HP 12c Dorks. "My favorite thing about the HP 12c? Loaning the calculator to someone and then having them say. Longtime devotees have found a home on Facebook, where they can heap praise on, and post tips related to, the HP 12c. But RPN wasn't a method that financial people were used to - not that it stopped them from embracing the 12c. It's simpler and more efficient than standard algebraic notation, Harms says, and it doesn't require bigger, multi-line screens like complex algebraic entry does. Most significantly, the calculator uses Reverse Polish Notation (RPN), which is a technique that governs how the user inputs a formula into the calculator. Some of the design decisions that Harms and his team made were a gamble.
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I got to be the overall project manager for the 12c, which involved the electrical engineers, the mechanical engineers and the software people, which was pretty exciting." "I guess I did a good enough job with that, and I was promoted.
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I wrote the code for the calculators, too," recalls Harms, who's still with HP today. One of the big things I did was working on the financial calculations, getting those accurate. "My first jobs were around working the math behind the buttons on the calculators. He was put in charge of creating a financial calculator that would be small enough fit in a shirt pocket, precise enough to exceed federal standards, and have a long battery life. Harms joined HP straight out of Iowa State, where he earned a PhD in numerical analysis. I have one in the office and two at home," says Dennis Harms, who was the original project manager for the 12c. "Very few dedicated 12c people only have one.