The Hewlett-Packard 12C financial calculator is 30 years old, and it still stands as an icon among financial professionals. It uses reverse Polish notation or RPN (which is the REAL name, not a joke) and so the learning curve is steep. For those of us who learned on them, though, they are great and indestructable. Too bad they don't have spell-check or Web access.
There's a 12C app for the iPhone, along with other financial calculator apps.
"Skeptics say the HP 12c's followers are stubbornly clinging to a relic of an earlier era. "The financial calculator is headed the way of the wristwatch: a no-longer necessary device that users carry because of sentimentality, vanity or an unwillingness to change," says Bernie McSherry, senior vice president of Cuttone & Co., a brokerage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Mr. McSherry prefers to use online programs."
Whatever. I remember hearing the same thing about the 2D spreadsheet and flat-file databases.
To ripoff "Jackie Brown":
"12C. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively have to crunch every freaking number in the room. Accept no substitutes."
And in France they are called "Le 12C."
There's a 12C app for the iPhone, along with other financial calculator apps.
"Skeptics say the HP 12c's followers are stubbornly clinging to a relic of an earlier era. "The financial calculator is headed the way of the wristwatch: a no-longer necessary device that users carry because of sentimentality, vanity or an unwillingness to change," says Bernie McSherry, senior vice president of Cuttone & Co., a brokerage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Mr. McSherry prefers to use online programs."
Whatever. I remember hearing the same thing about the 2D spreadsheet and flat-file databases.
To ripoff "Jackie Brown":
"12C. The very best there is. When you absolutely, positively have to crunch every freaking number in the room. Accept no substitutes."
And in France they are called "Le 12C."
