Some of those fans were later hired by HP to revive the calculator division, but it was too little, too late, and HP has never reclaimed the market. HP calculators have a vast and loyal fan base around the world. Around HP, some people still spit after they say her name. The geniuses who invented such dominant creatures as the HP-12C (the financial calculator that refuses to die), the HP-41 series and the HP-48 series, have moved on to other careers. HP was king of the mountain until Carly Fiorina chose to pull the plug on the calculator division sometime in the 1990s, and ceded the entire market to Texas Instruments.Ĭarly's excuse at the time was that 'calculators are not profitable,' which was an outright lie. Although many worthy competitors arose, none could match HP's quality, reliability and overall superior design. HP literally created the market for handheld scientific calculators. The first pocket-sized scientific calculator in the world was the HP-35, invented by Hewlett Packard and introduced to the world in 1972. The developer's web page has also disappeared. I wish I'd saved a local picture of it, because it was good. In addition, Graphix48 has disappeared from the App Store. Since Apple did some housekeeping on their App Store, some of the picture links are broken. This is one of the most widely read articles on my blog. There's a new game in town, and it makes the HP and TI calculators as obsolete as dinosaurs. There's a Swiss company, SwissMicros, which makes absolutely beautiful replicas of some of the greatest HP calculators: the 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 41, and 42. If you have followed my recommendation and downloaded this little jewel, consider helping out by clicking on the Donate link on the Free42 webpage and sending Thomas a little cash. The latest version was released a little over a month ago, in February 2020.

Don't worry their calculators are still free to you, and always will be.Īnd a final bit of good news: Free42 is not only alive and kicking after 15 years, but it is thriving! It is still in active development. More power to them, I say, and to Eli Luberoff and his company. The Desmos calculators continue to march ahead. It would be unfortunate to see this masterpiece of Swiss engineering disappear. The SwissMicros version of the HP42 is 'out of stock'. I'm glad to see that it is so useful to so many people. This is still one of the most widely read articles on my blog.

Hp-41 emulator for mac