17B vs 12C

[brouhaha]

(11-21-2023 12:39 AM)Matt Agajanian Wrote:  Was just wondering… Was the 17B and its revisions intended to supersede the 12C?

Sort of. HP wanted to replace the 12C, and their first attempt was the 18C, which evolved into the 19B and 19BII, and spun off the 17B and 17BII, while the 10B and 14B were on a somewhat independent development path.

However, none of these were actually a functional superset of the 12C, so the 12C continued selling well, much to HP's chagrin.

In the 1990s, HP made a prototype of a 12C using a Saturn processor rather than the Nut, and reportedly did some focus group testing, but decided not to introduce it.

That left the 12C mostly unchanged from the early 1990s to around 2008, and of course, HP sitll makes a 12C, as well as the 12C Platinum and 12C Prestige.