HP Forum Archive 15

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The NEW Platinum 12C Message #1 Posted by Just Me on 9 Oct 2005, 12:20 p.m. I'm surprised that there is so little here about the revised Platinum. They have fixed the enter key, GREATLY sped up the TVM calculations, added a backspace and undo key, a contrast control, etc. Is this pretty much a non-story? Just wondering.

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #2 Posted by Namir on 9 Oct 2005, 1:16 p.m., in response to message #1 by Just Me Hi "Just Me", You tell me who you are and I will tell you the story. Fare enough? Namir

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #3 Posted by Stephen Easterling on 9 Oct 2005, 10:02 p.m., in response to message #1 by Just Me I hocked two 12C Platinums so I could wait for the "revised" version. How can I get one? If I call to place an order (or go to Office Depot), all they sell are the old stock versions. You can never be guaranteed of getting the latest copy via phone order, even through HPShopping. If you have a source, I'd be happy to order through them.

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #4 Posted by Namir on 10 Oct 2005, 1:35 a.m., in response to message #3 by Stephen Easterling Stephen, To make sure you get the new version of the 12C Platinum you have to go in person to place where the machine is physically availabl. The new version has the open and close parenthesis below the STO and RCL keys. ORDERING ONLINE FROM ANYWHERE DOES NOT GUARANTEE YOU THAT YOU GET THE LATEST VERSION. Namir

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #5 Posted by Stephen Easterling on 10 Oct 2005, 12:39 p.m., in response to message #4 by Namir I agree in that it would be best to see what I'm buying before I buy. I'll have to look around my community to find the latest revision. I hope that the distributors aren't going to fill standing orders for six months with older models. (Sometimes when a seller gets a "new" shipment, they're getting new old stock.)

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #6 Posted by Jeff on 10 Oct 2005, 2:27 p.m., in response to message #5 by Stephen Easterling I bought my new one almost a month ago at Office Depot.

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #7 Posted by Stephen Easterling on 10 Oct 2005, 7:57 p.m., in response to message #6 by Jeff I've already checked everywhere in my town and no one has the new 12C Platinum (the revised version) yet. Too bad! I'd like to get my hands on one.

Re: The NEW Platinum 12c Message #8 Posted by Woody Larkin on 10 Oct 2005, 8:24 p.m., in response to message #7 by Stephen Easterling I went to Office Depot today (in Indianapolis, IN) to look for the new 12c Platinum. The demo unit was the old model. I pulled the order card and requested one be brought out from stock for me to look at before buying. It was the new model; as reported in earlier posts, the STO and RCL keys have left and right parentheses; the backspace key is on the minus (-) key; the undo is a left downward curving arrow on the divide key. These functions are in blue and are used with the blue (g) key. Overall, I'm impressed with the quality and appearance of the unit. The keyboard has a good tactile feel and the display is clear. I think Office Depot is a good bet to look for one...just don't look at the demo units; they probably have been sitting around quite a while.

Re: The NEW Platinum 12c Message #9 Posted by Stephen Easterling on 11 Oct 2005, 1:15 a.m., in response to message #8 by Woody Larkin I already checked out my local Office Depot and other local stores that would carry it,... none of them have it (yet). You know, I had two 12CP and had terrible keypad problems where the numbers wouldn't register after feeling and hearing the click. Both models were like this. HP told me to just go buy a regular 12C, so I did and it solved the problem. However, I really want a 12CP and want the keypad to work as well as the older, regular 12C models. How do you like the new keypad on the "revised" 12CP?

Re: The NEW Platinum 12c Message #10 Posted by Bubba on 13 Oct 2005, 10:10 p.m., in response to message #9 by Stephen Easterling Whoa that's funny! You bought 2 12C platinums and HP told you to just get a regular 12C? Wow so they basically admitted that platinum has quality problems. I wasn't expecting to read that. Maybe I should just buy a regular 12C, too. I'm afraid one of the buttons on my platinum that semi-works will stop working altogether when I take the CFA exam. Ugh....

Re: The NEW Platinum 12c Message #11 Posted by Stephen Easterling on 14 Oct 2005, 2:51 p.m., in response to message #10 by Bubba Sort of. I should say that I owned two 12CP. The story goes like this: I bought a 12CP from Office Depot and I wasn't happy with the keypad, so I called HP Service and they apologized because they'd never heard of problems like that. So they sent me another one. I asked "I'll send you my old one so you can see the problem and make sure the issue isn't reproduced in other calcs." The guy said they didn't need it back. So I got the replacement and it was worse. I called HP Service back and explained my findings. Again, they seemed surprised. I told him I owned many other HP calcs and didn't expect keypads problems like this. I guess he figured I just lightly poked at the keys and I figured the 12CP was just designed for hard pushers, like the new 17BII+. So I just wrote off the new 12CP, figuring that's just the way it is and that my "problem calcs" were not real problems, but just a manifestation of design of the keypad. So I returned the one calc back to Office Depot and sold the other. After I got a new 12C, I was very happy with the keypad, but disappointed with the slow speed. Let me know if you find an acceptable 12CP and I'll buy it (new, of course).

Re: The NEW Platinum 12C Message #12 Posted by Eddie Shore on 13 Oct 2005, 8:27 a.m., in response to message #3 by Stephen Easterling Has anyone found a picture of the "new" 12PC on the internet? Please.

Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #13 Posted by Gene on 14 Oct 2005, 7:09 p.m., in response to message #12 by Eddie Shore Enjoy!

Still ugly and substandard -- the new HP 12c platinum Message #14 Posted by Karl Schneider on 15 Oct 2005, 12:32 a.m., in response to message #13 by Gene Well, if the objective is to produce a well-desgned calculator, KinHPo still doesn't "get it": They kept the funky and hard-to-read red and blue shift keys on a metallic background -- not ergonomic like yellow and blue shift keys on a dark brown background. Parentheses have belatedly been added, but they are shifted -- inconvenient. "CLx" (instead of backarrow, which is essential for ease of use) is still in its familiar location from the 12C and 10C. Does the shifted backarrow on the "-" key do the same thing as on the 41C, 11C, 15C, and Pioneers? That horrible 10C/12C programming functionality remains, with an ample-but-useless 400 programming steps. Why is "CLEAR PREFIX" still there? Pioneers did away with that by having the user press the shift key again to clear it (like the 41C did), and adding "SHOW" (like "MANT" on the older models) to show the full mantissa. Does "ON" serve as "CLx" as on the Pioneers? If not, why is "OFF" now shifted? Why wasn't "Roll Up" added? How about making "Sx" and "Sy" separate calculations, to prevent perplexing error messages caused by irrelevant-but-corrupted y-data? How about making regression coefficient "r" a separate calculation? It needn't be recalculated each time an x- or y-estimate is performed without new data. I'd bet that hardly anyone actually programs on these low-end financial calculators -- particularly this one, with such a bad programming paradigm. If the 12C Platinum were to be a non-programmable (as the 10C should have been), all of the following could be eliminated: P/R, R/S, PSE, SST, BST, GTO, CLEAR PRGM, x<=y, x=0, MEM That would leave plenty of room for making "(" and ")" (or maybe "sqrt" and "x2") unshifted, and adding things that were left out. -- KS Edited: 15 Oct 2005, 1:34 a.m.

Re: Still ugly and substandard -- the new HP 12c platinum Message #15 Posted by valentino ducati (switzerland) on 15 Oct 2005, 5:14 a.m., in response to message #14 by Karl Schneider Hi Karl I - partly - second you. I suppose there i no discussion about the fact that a 12C(P) is definitly NOT a good programmable calculating device. I think it is ok for keystroke oriented repetitive tasks. But nothing more, compared to the other Voyager or Pioneer models. Or even the few new hp/Kinpo calculators araound. But it is definitly an improvement. Quote: 1. They kept the funky and hard-to-read red and blue shift keys on a metallic background -- not ergonomic like yellow and blue shift keys on a dark brown background. Agree! Look at all the hp (and TI) series of calculators since the seventies: gold/blue/white is best on a black plate. I have an original 12C and - beside the well known programming flaws - it looks very luxury (gold finish) but still well readable with its black plate. On silver they should go away from the traditional f=yellow/g=blue matrix. Quote: 3. "CLx" (instead of backarrow, which is essential for ease of use) is still in its familiar location from the 12C and 10C. Does the shifted backarrow on the "-" key do the same thing as on the 41C, 11C, 15C, and Pioneers? 6. Does "ON" serve as "CLx" as on the Pioneers? If not, why is "OFF" now shifted? I agree regarding the double functionality of [g]<-- and [CLx]. But the Pioneer you refer to, are also not strightforward. E.g. the 32SII: It has indeed [<--] (Backspace) and above [f] CLEAR. That is the same functionality like 41x. But the [C] key is a mix of an ON, ESC or CANCEL key and again the CLx function, depending on the situation you hit it. And yes, to turn off the 32SII you must key [g] OFF. With this discussion I will show the venue that not only the hp/Kinpo people have big problem with well designed UI, but also the former hp engineers. My examples If you look at a keyboard of a calculator you should be able to inuitive identify the toggle functions and the others. As a designer of the layout you can even preserve more keys using good toggle conventions. Back to the 12CP: This calculator has many toggle functions (with only two states), but only two are realized the good way. [R/S] is quite intuitive and changes from RUN to STOP and back. [f] P/R is not 100 % clear but it means PROGRAM mode and RUN mode (should better read calculator mode) But what about B/E? No, they used one more key to toggle BEGIN and END. And DM/MDY? They also used one more key to toggle between DMY and MDY date format. And new for the 12CP, they don't use a toggling key R/A to change from RPN to ALG... Maybe hp (and other manufacturer) should better look at the proposals of the involved user groups: hundreds of brains can find more and better solution for the same problem then a punch of maybe high qualified engineers. My 2 EURO-cents Edited: 15 Oct 2005, 5:19 a.m.

Re: Still ugly and substandard -- the new HP 12c platinum Message #16 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 15 Oct 2005, 3:22 p.m., in response to message #15 by valentino ducati (switzerland) Quote: But what about B/E? No, they used one more key to toggle BEGIN and END. And DM/MDY? They also used one more key to toggle between DMY and MDY date format. And new for the 12CP, they don't use a toggling key R/A to change from RPN to ALG... I disagree for a programmable device: If you write a program and want to make sure that the calc is in a certain state, a toggle function is the worst you can encounter, especially if no way is provided to question the current state.

Re: Still ugly and substandard -- the new HP 12c platinum Message #17 Posted by valentino ducati (switzerland) on 16 Oct 2005, 12:37 p.m., in response to message #16 by Marcus von Cube, Germany Quote: I disagree for a programmable device: If you write a program and want to make sure that the calc is in a certain state, a toggle function is the worst you can encounter, especially if no way is provided to question the current state. Marcus: I agree for this item. I thought more flag oriented; but this doesn't rule for the 12C. Valentino

Re: Still ugly and substandard -- the new HP 12c platinum Message #18 Posted by Michael Barry on 15 Oct 2005, 12:30 p.m., in response to message #14 by Karl Schneider Before I was a convert to RPN, I used the 10B extensively. The key that I found most useful was the back arrow key. When I converted over to RPN and the 12C, not having the back arrow key was harder to get used to than the new (to me) RPN method. When I heard about the 12CP, my hopes were that they would incorporate a back arrow into the new calculator. My hopes were dashed. When I read in this forum that they had actually incorporated the back arrow key into a newer version of the 12CP, I was ready to buy one. Again, my hopes were dashed. I don't know about everyone else, but I view the back arrow key on a calculator just as I do the backspace key on a keyboard. It's next to impossible to work without it. Try typing your next message in this forum without using the backspace key! Can you imagine the uproar if the computer Gods got rid of the backspace key and put in a clear-all key. I know this is unreasonable, but you get my drift. This half-hearted attempt at the back arrow key just doesn't cut it.

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #19 Posted by bill platt on 16 Oct 2005, 9:09 a.m., in response to message #13 by Gene I am utterly baffled by this "upgrade". Between this one, and the 33s, it seems as if HP is so afraid of changing anything from the originals, that they change everything--except that which actually needs to be changed. By this I am referring to the basic logic of the key naming and key placement. With this upgrade, would it have been difficult to make the clearX key an un-shifted backspace, and put the CLx into another spot? I have an answer to my own question, which is that because the original design uses keycodes in programming (a thoroughly out-dated method!) they could not "move" a key without destroying 1:1 compatibility with "legacy" user program code. So, a useless machine merely becomes even more useless...Why on earth is the 12c still popular? Answer: because those who buy it do not write programs for it. (My conjecture). This begs the question, "so the purpose of the 12cp is....?"

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #20 Posted by valentino ducati (switzerland) on 16 Oct 2005, 12:50 p.m., in response to message #19 by bill platt Quote: This begs the question, "so the purpose of the 12cp is....?" Bill: I got my 12C spring 2005 from a banker; mint condition. I discussed a few minutes with him about the calculator and he told me, he "programmed" only two complicated interest formulae into the memory. And he worked 4 years with only this two programs. All the other daily work was done with todays broker tools or with the keyboard functions of the 12C. Let me now answer your question: The purpose of the 12cp is to offer a good looking white collar pocket calculator with all the basic functions for daily use in financial environment and minimum programmability for repetitive tasks . If this was the purpose, then the 12c(p) matches it.

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #21 Posted by Gene on 16 Oct 2005, 6:10 p.m., in response to message #19 by bill platt If this was done, then it wouldn't be an HP12c. Changing where the keys are located is very bad. HP had to do it for lastX, but I'm sure wanted to minimize them. Making wholesale changes would not leave you with an HP12c platinum. Why is this model out there? It is an HP12c with algebraic entry. And, if you think it is useless, good for you. :-) The millions and millions of finance people using this will just continue to disagree with you. And, more HP12c's have been sold than any of the measly non-finance machines...perhaps even combined. :-)

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #22 Posted by bill platt on 17 Oct 2005, 12:28 p.m., in response to message #21 by Gene Quote: And, more HP12c's have been sold than any of the measly non-finance machines...perhaps even combined. :-) Yes, yes, combined--and including all the Sharps and Novus calculators too I suspect... Still, it seems like lock-in to me. As essentially none of the finance guys actually program it, then why not make it better, rather than a swank but crippled "evolution"? The fact that keys have changed isn't going to bother the finance guys--as they aren't going to have lots of legacy programs to migrate, anyway. What good is a shifted backspace? That's worse than a shifted parenthesis by far. Oh well. Anyone still use their betamax machines? Edited: 17 Oct 2005, 12:31 p.m.

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #23 Posted by Gene on 17 Oct 2005, 12:46 p.m., in response to message #22 by bill platt Again, I just don't think you understand what HP has done with this "upgrade". There is now an HP12c with algebraic mode. Big deal to you? But perhaps not to the great masses in the real estate and finance world who have so far stayed away from the 12c because of RPN (yes, such people exist). If you "make it better", then you would break all existing programs that are out there for the HP12c. Yes, finance guys program this machine. Take a look at the HP12c platinum solutions book and you'll see lots of programs for it. People in industry and real estate use programs. Start messing around with keycodes much and these will break. My only guess is that you just speak from a lack of knowledge. Since you appear not to be a finance guy, then you just don't know. And, if you aren't a finance guy, why would you care what HP did? They now have an HP12c built on current technology that has RPN and algebraic modes, 4 times the program memory, more space for cash flows, and on this "upgrade" from the original 12c platinum, the algebraic mode has parentheses too. This appears to be the method to make these changes with the least amount of splash to existing users and the least amount of breaking of existing programs. A BIG reason the finance people still buy the 12c is because they already know how to use it. If it does what they want, why buy another machine? Why should they buy something that is different even if improved? Given that HP appears to have tried to kill off the 12c several times in the past, unsuccessully, finance users have spoken. With the HP12c platinum, HP now has a chance to reach people in these industries who would never buy an RPN model. As to the location of the parentheses and backspace, I can't address that. HP didn't ask my advice. :-) But, you still don't seem to understand how dominant the 12c is and has been. It may have outsold ALL other HP calculators combined over its lifetime. Change it to make its usual users learn a new way to use it? Why take that risk? If they want to upgrade, let them buy the 17bII+. And, your electronic snobbery shows in the betamax comment. HP will laugh all the way to the bank while you give it a sneer. Who comes out the winner? :-)

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #24 Posted by bill platt on 17 Oct 2005, 2:42 p.m., in response to message #23 by Gene Hi Gene, Sorry--I didn't phrase/punctuate very well---I meant to make my statement "Finance guys don't program these" to be a question. My brother doesn't bother programming his, nor my cousin; both are "finance guys". My hedge fun friend (from high school) has always had a 17bii and could never understand the fascination with the 12c. I perfectly understand the dominance of the 12c. I have seen it more often than any other hp--in real estate offices, in the president's offiec, in the VP's office, on the stock broker's desk, etc etc. Yes, they are everywhere. I even met a real estate agent who had one with all the paint rubbed off. She had used it for 20 years non-stop. (I have met a lot of real estate agents and seen more 12c thatn any other single calc). (For some reason, the car dealers all use some sort of printing adding machine and some sort of byzantine method of manual calculation--and it takes like 20 minutes to "run the numbers" -- must be a psychological weapon). I see what you mean about trying to reach the "algebraic" customers. In that respect it is a long-overdue effort. Essentially it looks like people who did not like RPN all ran off to the TI BA. For some reason, the other HP's just did not interest them. Perhaps this platinum, well marketed as an Algebraic Capable machine, just might make a showing. Oh, as far as betamax goes, I never owned one:-) Edited: 17 Oct 2005, 2:44 p.m.

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #25 Posted by Bubba on 17 Oct 2005, 9:18 p.m., in response to message #24 by bill platt I am studying for the CFA Level I exam. Only 2 types of calculators are allowed the 12c (and the platinum) and one by Texas Instruments. The CFA Institute only allows those 2 calculators becuase its easier include them rather than make a big list of which ones are not allowed. If you add more functions to the 12c then it might become too modern and then it wouldn't be allowed on the exam, because exam takers wouldn't be memorizing the formulas, they'd be using pre-programmed functions instead. I bet HP gets a lot of business from CFA exam candidates.

Re: Picture of the new HP 12c platinum Message #26 Posted by bill platt on 18 Oct 2005, 11:37 a.m., in response to message #25 by Bubba It seems that exams are the only market for their calculators, now. The 33s is the only approved calc for the Engineering license exams.

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