HP Brings Back 40-Year-Old Calculator As A ‘Collector’s Edition’
Image via HP Calculator Division
80s- and 90s-style gadgets appear to be enjoying a resurgence lately. Recently, the crowd swooned when Beats by Dre unveiled transparent Studio Buds+. You could see all the wiring in them, much like the see-through Game Boy Color.
If you’ve been collecting these, here’s one you might not have gotten your hands on yet. In a world dominated by smartphones that can do virtually everything, HP has dusted off a calculator from 1982 and rebooted it as a ‘Collector’s Edition’.
The HP-15C was first introduced back when the company was still known as Hewlett-Packard, and discontinued seven years later in 1989. According to Gizmodo, the device returned for a brief stint as a “Limited Edition” in 2011. It’s now back again with ‘Collector’s Edition’ branded on its shell, making it “a great gift for collectors and engineers alike,” says HP.
The HP 15C Collector’s Edition features all the same features and functions of the classic, including a 10-digit segmented LCD display, but boasts a processing speed of up to 100 times faster. It supports input for complex numbers, matrix math, numerical integration, and root-solving. The relaunched calculator also touts a longer battery life as it uses CR2032 coin cells.
What’s also notable is that, at a price of US$120, the Collector’s Edition is friendlier on the wallet than the original, which cost US$135—about US$425 in today’s currency—when it was released in 1982. It’s an unspoken indication of how far scientific calculators have fallen out of favor through the decades.
With that said, the report points out that the classic model continues to have a cult following, and it’s still selling for a few hundred dollars on resale platforms like eBay.
Preorders for the Collector’s Edition have opened in markets in the Asia Pacific region, Europe, and the UK, ahead of a scheduled launch in late June or early July.
[via Gizmodo and Liliputing, images via HP Calculator Division]
