The year? 1981. Ronald Reagan was in office, CD players were a year away, and many of us still had rotary phones hanging from our kitchen walls. (Well, we had one in our house, anyway.)
Yep, things have sure changed in the past few decades, but one classic tech gadget has stayed impressively the same: Hewlett-Packard’s best-selling 12c financial calculator, which first went on sale 30 years ago and has remained in stores ever since.
That’s a pretty remarkable statement—especially considering that HP is the very company that just killed off its new TouchPad tablet barely a month after it landed in stores.
Armed with a one-line, 10-character screen and a bunch of keys that … well, do things I know nothing about (hey, I was an English major), the 12c “revolutionized financial calculations” thanks to its “breakthrough landscape layout,” according to HP. (I’ll take their word for it.)
If you want to own a piece of history, you can get a 30th anniversary “limited edition” of the iconic calculator for $80.
That’s $70 off the original, 1981 asking price of $150, which (adjusted for inflation) comes out to $373 in today’s dollars.
LINK: HP Celebrates Enduring Icon with Limited-edition 12c 30th Anniversary Calculator
I’ve read the current 12C is made in China and isn’t nearly the quality of the original 12C, versions of which I have been using for 30 years. The RPN method used for calculation by some HP calculators, including the 12C, was a stroke of genius.
I’m still amazed that HP continues to sell them after all these years. That must be some kind of record.
I agree. What other technology has gone unchanged for 30 years and is still as useful now as it was then.