Comments on: HP reincarnates calculators on iPhone, Windows

Hewlett-Packard has given new life to its calculator history through applications for the iPhone and Windows. They're practical, but not cheap.

[Bill_I]

The HP advertising said that their calculators "have no equal".

[euspos]

Neat!
Yes the HP calculators were some of the best ever made. I still have my HP 15c (bought in 1983 for a large sum of money to a poor student) in the drawer and use it sometimes. Reversed polish notation was cryptic for the first few minutes, but then it was "no other way". Still use it today... Guess last set of batteries must be close to 8 years by now.

However, the idea of a SW app is not entirely new. Once in a blue moon, think it was in the late 80ies, HP did develop a SW app for Intel based PCs (possibly even running under Windows of those days), and if you had a (monochrome of course) CRT with a touch sensitive surface, you could actually use your beloved HP calculator on a PC.
Those were the days....

[david_arb]

HP28S...best engineering calculator ever. Would never have got my degree without it. Came out right at the transition of (for students at least) using calculators to PCs. Practically every engineering student my class had one and we were all amazed by the 'raw computing power' we had in our 'pockets'. We didn't have to go home or to a lab to unleash the our ultra-poweful '286s on a problem; we could just whip out the 28S.

Those were the days...

[appledogx--2008]

The 15C for iPhone looks great, but the pricing is absurd. It should be in line with the 12C for iPhone. I guess the charge is for the HP name since there are similar calculators available for much less.

[Vertical12]

Avogadro's number....nice

[[e-mail]]

hah, had a 41CX for years. wrote a program for it that'd keep 15 objects in-flight for a game i used to play.
NASA (so the rumor goes) programmed a 41CX to display landing instructions for the Space Shuttle (early versions) in case the mainframes on-board crashed.
If it's good enough for NASA, it's good enough for me.
BTW: ever see a TI on the Space Shuttle or the Space Station? <waiting> nah, didn't think so.

[baddawg65]

All of you wonderful people are dating yourselves.
I personally had an HP-41C which still works and does excellent job for what I'm doing.
Yes, HP was expensive but it was well worth it since save my a$$ many times while flying doing quick calculations to double check the flight computers since they where showing some strange results.
Back to the original subject of porting HP calculator to iPhone it would great, however, it would be missing that nice feedback of the keypad of the old HP.

[iPhoneCalc]

Of course, the iPhone is a very different beast than a standalone calculator. The touch screen is actually quite small compared to an HP calc. if you want an advanced calculator that was designed in 2009 specifically for the iPhone, you could always grab OneCalc http://bit.ly/wSCVG . It supports optional RPN, converts or so 150 units and currencies, and is *way* cheaper too!

[centerpunch]

There are cheaper HP clones on the iPhone App store, search for 11c for a great scientific calculator.

(But I wish someone would do a 10C, it's easier to use and still more than I need.)

[mrglsmrc-1]

I own about six calculator apps for the ipod touch and a few of them are rpn because that's what i love and am used to. And a few of them are free. I don't want to distract you all with my recommendations because this is not about me and you don't know me well enough to value them.
I would like to take a moment to defend HP and their pricing although I will not buy their application. You are all engineers. When I was in school for math and computer programming I had the privilege of studying numerical methods and automata theory. So I know how errors can creep into calculations. And it isn't just the calculator that makes the answer-- it is what the user knows to avoid round off errors.
Whatever failings HP have, and there must be many, I am dead sure dollars to doughnuts that their application is correctly programmed for precision mathematics. I have made a point of interviewing calculator programmers with new applications for mac and ipod to see if these men have any numerical methods background. By far most of them don't-- with a few notable exceptions. One calculator programmer is an engineer who is self taught in programming-- an italian. Another, a scot, is an expert in user interface design but has no numerical methods background. HP may have out priced themselves for now, but you get what you pay for. If i were doing finance with millions of dollars at stake I'd buy the HP app in a heart beat because it aint worth screwing around with potentially expensive mistakes for a mere thirty bucks.
If the answer on your two dollar application was three-tenths of a per centage off, will you catch it?

[marc_nz]

I couldn't resist buying the 12C, but the 15C is a bit too pricey. If at least it would allow you to download an electronic version of the full user guide and other solutions books for it, that would be fine. I got the Sci HP 15C which is probably as good.
Just checking the eBay listings and those go for way more than the $30 asked by HP! up to 10X more indeed. So is $30 that much of a rip off for something that is far more expensive and will need to be carried around as well?

[palmheads]

Be great to see these apps on the Android platform as well.