Would the HP-15C Limited Edition Firmware Age Away?

[Greg]

One of the more interesting errors I saw come out of the HP firmware was for a HP-29C.

It wasn't a real calculator, just an emulator, but the first time I tested it; it said "Error". Not surprising for a new bit of software but actually getting that far meant that a lot was actually working. Now in a twist that might be more relevant to this thread, the actual problem it was complaining about was the "continuous memory" was empty.

It had never been switched on before and all of the RAM contained zeroes. That caused the "Error" display. If a 15C has been sitting without batteries for 5 years, there's a good chance that the CMOS has zeroed itself. In that case, applying batteries and doing a switch off / switch on should initialize the memory and all will be well. I don't know if this applies to the 15C - it was really after my time. With the emulator, I only saw the "Error" once. After that the simulated CMOS always came up fine.

This may be of some use - or a total red herring. Hopefully the former.