Introduction and Thankyou

[Zac Bruce]

Bshoring,

Thanks for the reply. I've been trying to get other students interested in the joys of RPN but to no avail. The 12c is the only RPN calculator currently allowed by my university for exams. I imagine that when I take one of my finance subjects new trimester I might find other people interested in the calculator; the other choices being the 10bii and the TI BA. I'm currently making submissions to have other RPN calculators approved for use, but may run in to road blocks around the later models being "too advanced", and some being able to store text etc. I could only hope I might be able to get the 17bii approved, or maybe the 30b; which I have found still being sold new.

I've been lucky enough to just buy an original 12c very cheaply, and a near perfect 19bii (with pouch and the manual) from the same seller. I noticed that he had just recently sold a 28c and a 620lx, and so thought I would get in touch with him and ask about the history of the calculators. I'm not sure whether he is on this site, but anyhow it turns out that he was a service technician for Sample Electronics, who was acquired by HP in 1967 to start their Australian operations, so he continued to work for HP, eventually working in medical electronics (which he managed) then he left HP in the 1980's. He returned to HP in the late 1990's to start up a computer services/sales operation, then he left again in the 2000's.

This led me to searching through scans of 'Depth' and 'Inform' magazines and finding out much more about HP Australasia that I knew before. John Warmington, who was the first managing director of HP Australia, was the general manager of Sample Electronics at the time that HP acquired the distributorship and as such became the managing director of HP Australia, and remained in that position until 1981. Also looking through the magazines I found more than one photo of the fellow who is now selling off his collection of HP calculators; two of which I have now bought.

It's really quite interesting to hear a bit of the history and to then buy a small piece of it; the 12c was the calculator he evidently carried around day to day. He was fortunate enough to have met all the managing directors from Bill and Dave through to Carly. He said in the early days they were an amazing company to work for and "like a big family". I'm going to watching his listings very carefully over the next few months to see what other treasures he's holding. He said he had 8 of the clamshell models, two of which have broken battery doors but the others are all in good condition. I'm sort of hoping he doesn't have any 95/100/150lx because I'm already wanting one and I don't think my wife is going to be impressed with the money I'm spending on old electronics. When my wife saw the second platinum she remarked, "Don't you already have enough calculators?"


Thanks again for the comment,

Zac