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HP's 12c calculator hits middle age, copes by releasing Anniversary edition (video)
HP's tablet ship may have sailed, but at least you can still count on the outfit for your next reverse Polish notation calculator. That's right, HP's 12c just hit the big three-oh. The classic calculator is celebrating its mid life crisis 30th year in production with a special limited edition number cruncher, featuring an etched faceplate declaring its pedigree. If 1981's coolest calculator isn't your style, don't fret -- HP is also releasing a limited edition run of 1982's HP 15c, boasting a hundred-fold improvement in performance over its predecessor. Retro calculation can be yours for $80 and $100, respectively. Hit the break to see HP toot its own horn in the 12c's official 30th anniversary "Then & Now" video.
Clever iPhone app prevents calculator pR0n
A tweet earlier today pointed me to an iPhone calculator app that really got me laughing, as well as taking me on a trip down memory lane.When I was in high school, calculators were expensive (US$200 for a six-function calculator with memory, for example) and just starting to make it into the hands of students. In those more naive times, anything that could be construed as even mildly suggestive got a lot of chuckles. One of the more amusing pastimes was to perform certain calculations that would come up with a result like 5318008 or 3104558 which, when the calculator was turned upside down, would spell a "dirty word."Well, TLA Systems wants to make sure that its PCalc RPN [iTunes Link, US$9.99] and free PCalc Lite [iTunes Link] calculator apps for iPhone are used only for good purposes, so they've built in a special smut filter that will block these words when the calculator is turned upside down by displaying the word "CENSORED." Their blog entry is very tongue-in-cheek, asserting that they developed the filter to avoid getting a 17+ rating in the App Store. Personally, I think TLA Systems developer James Thomson is just brilliant at getting blogs to write about his products. Well done, James!Tip of the Tweet to @timhaines
Leopard Love: Apple boosts Calculator
OS X's Calculator application is something I basically ignore. Between Spotlight and Terminal's bc, I rarely if ever use it. So it was a pleasant and welcome surprise when TUAW reader Roberto Mateu gave us a heads up that Leopard's calculator was updated with better RPN support. Calculator has done RPN for some time--if you're still running Tiger, you can see the old version by selecting View > RPN for any of the three calculator types. Under Tiger, the = button changed to Enter and that was about it. Leopard has updated the RPN calculator by adding multi-line entry so you can see your stack as it grows. It's a much nicer way to use RPN and TUAW heartily approves. %Gallery-11570%
