HP Is Selling a 40-Year-Old Calculator Again—For $120

You’d presume that calculators would person been 1 of nan galore technological casualties of nan smartphone, joining MP3 players and point-and-shoot cameras arsenic standalone devices nary 1 really uses immoderate more. But location are apparently still capable calculator devotees for HP to resurrect a exemplary that’s been kicking astir for complete 40 years arsenic a “Collector’s Edition,” complete pinch a value tag that mightiness person you doing a double take.

First released backmost successful 1982, nan HP-15C debuted erstwhile HP was still calling itself Hewlett-Packard. It arrived astir a decade aft nan Busicom LE-120A Handy—the first handheld physics calculator pinch an LED display—and followed respective different iconic HP calculator models released successful nan mid-to-late ‘70s, including nan HP-65, which was really programmable utilizing a built-in magnetic paper reader.

By comparison, nan HP-15C was a pocket-sized technological calculator pinch “built-in support for analyzable numbers, matrix math, numerical integration, and guidelines solving”. It featured a 10-digit segmented LCD display, and had specified a loyal pursuing that, to this day, HP-15Cs still waste for a mates 100 bucks connected eBay.

Image: HP

The original HP-15C was discontinued successful 1989, but HP resurrected it again successful 2011 arsenic nan “HP 15c Limited Edition.” 12 years later, nan calculator is now returning erstwhile again arsenic nan “HP 15C Collector’s Edition.” It looks and functions precisely for illustration nan original did, complete pinch a 10-digit segmented LCD show that seems almost ancient astatine this point, but should connection dramatically improved artillery life acknowledgment to a brace of CR2032 coin cells. Interestingly, according to HP, it’s besides “up to 100x faster processing speed,” which sounds for illustration it could make this calculator a hacker’s dream.

The original HP-15C sold for $135 successful 1982, aliases person to astir $425 erstwhile adjusted for inflation. That almost makes nan HP 15C Collector’s Edition’s $120 value tag (you tin pre-order it successful nan UK for £95.83 pinch transportation successful July) look for illustration a bargain, until you retrieve you tin now bargain a $10 desktop calculator pinch a touchscreen that runs Android and has enough processing powerfulness to play Doom and N64 games.