Rodent Regatta

With no mention of the product showing up on HP’s web site, Stephen Wildstrom has a column in the current Business Week that says HP is going to update the HP12c. Tentatively, it’s to be called the HP 12c Platinum.

This product has been the workhorse for financial computations for over 20 years. Calculators are fantastic products. They do very specialized things incredibly well and incredibly fast. I went to engineering school during the era when calculators replaced slide rules. The summer following my freshman year, I bought my first HP45 calculator.

Many of us in the engineering school literally checked calculator results against our tried, true and trusted slide rules until we gained confidence. Later I began teaching courses in RPN and HP calculator techniques.

I’ve searched the web rather thoroughly and Wildstrom’s is the only mention of this new product. If you locate a place that has them, expects them or can take a pre-order for them, let me know.