Why HP stopped making the HP-15C?

[Lawsen]

HP "Invent" brand stopped making calculators entirely.  They have Kinpo in China to make them.  The processor is often an ARM at 75 MHz.  The ten C series form factor that is made, a HP-12C and 12C Platinum, a business programmable calculator.  The science version with trigonometry function is not being made.  There is a petition at the HP calculator museum to persuade HP and Kinpo to re-introduce a HP-15C.  There has been no progress.  The closest thing to a new HP-15C is an I Pod Touch down load software emulator.  Davy Jones's micro calc is an option.  I missed my HP-11C from high school era.

Lawsen

[grenert]

There's a whole group of folks who lament the end of the great HP calculators of yore:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/
I still have my high school HP 11c, with original batteries!  

[Jon Chandler]

I recently came across an HP 32S II RPN Scientific at the local thrift store for a couple bucks.  I of course grabbed it for that price!

It seems pretty similar to the 11C I have around here somewhere.  It's about the same size but with the conventional orientation.  It's been getting a workout  and it's a joy to use.

[Russel]

I still have my old 12C that I've had for years. My brother inherited my Dads old 11C, so when I wanted a good scientific calculator I was surprised that HP doesn't make the 11C anymore. The 12C has been around forever, I figured the 11C would also still be around, but it isn't. I ended up getting the 35s, which has some interesting differences from older HP calculators, but I am finding that I really like it. You just can't beat HP hand calculators!

There is a website for those that want to bring back the 15c.

http://hp15c.org/

[EEVblog]

Over on the HP Museum site that I used to frequent I made the bet that HP would bring back the 15C - looks like I lost.
It is trivial. All they have to do is use use the new 12C hardware, change the front panel label and button idents and pop in the old 15C ROM. Plus maybe tweak a few lines of code.

Rumor has it Cyrille and the other HP guys left have had new working 15C protos on their desk for a long time now.

Dave.

[Zad]

This looks like an appropriate time to *bump* this thread. For those not on Twitter, Dave just published this url:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:aTGJxytfYiQJ:www8.hp.com/sg/en/products/calculators/product-detail.html%3Foid%3D5153395+NW250AA&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&source=www.google.com.au

It looks like the HP-15C is back! Or maybe not.

You may note that the above link is a Google cached version of the site, not the live one. I wonder why they HP published the page and then withdrew it? So far as I can see, it is only live on HP's Japanese site, so I hope they aren't just restricting it to one market.

I have my fingers crossed that they produce a 16C version too, and that they don't have the classic Kinpo Electronics build quality and reliability. (Kinpo are the people who took over calculator manufacture from HP)

Sigh. I guess I will have to totally rewrite my huge blog item on calculators now!

[EEVblog]

You may note that the above link is a Google cached version of the site, not the live one. I wonder why they HP published the page and then withdrew it?

Almost certainly because someone goofed and released the info before the official introduction date.
The panic response is always of course to remove the info and deny...
And the poor sucker that did it is probably now working in a sushi bar 

It will likely be the exact same build as the current new model 12C with the dual CR2032 batteries and the stupid battery life.

Dave.

[Conrad Hoffman]

Pure speculation, so feel free to flame- The HP of yore was a test equipment company first, stuffed with old school engineers. They understood and appreciated the superiority of an RPN calculator. They understood the necessity of good build quality and key action. Those people are called Agilent now. The HP of today is a marketing company and my guess is most of them couldn't use an RPN calculator to save their lives. No doubt getting traction on the idea of making something they don't understand and can't appreciate, is very difficult. It would be great if they can bring back the old construction. I'm not a 15C user, being more attached to the later 32S models, but it looks very capable. That 33S model, I assume from Kinpo, was headed in the right direction, but the chevron keys, bad battery life, illegible decimal point and overall strangeness just didn't do it for me. It also had some firmware bugs, though so did at least the first 32S and maybe the 32SII as well.

Though not RPN, I've been carrying a Sharp EL-W516 around for a while. The Sharps tend not to be available locally (TI owns that market) but are incredibly cheap from Amazon. Extremely powerful and if they were RPN they'd take over, but alas I don't see that ever coming. Does HP have some kind of lock on RPN?

[CodeDog]

My 15c replaced my TI programmable calculator in about 1983. I can't remember the model number of the TI, but it had red 7-seg LEDs for the display, I think TI-49 or TI-59? Anyway the 15C gathers dust in a storage box now, along with its spiral-bound user manual. Instead I now use an app on iOS that emulates it perfectly in every detail, right down to all the text and explanations on the underside of the body! Love the 15C.
Mark