• October 4, 2023

A Fashionable Tribute To The Vintage HP-16C Calculator

The HP-16C Pc Scientist is far liked as the one devoted programmer’s calculator that Hewlett-Packard ever made. Maximum surviving examples on the planet are well-used, and also you haven’t been in a position to reserve one from HP since 1989. Thus, [K Johansen] set about development a tribute to the HP-16C the use of trendy {hardware}.

The construct is dependent upon a Raspberry Pi Pico because the brains of the operation. As with such a lot of vintage HP calculators, it operates in Opposite Polish Notation, and comprises the normal stack operations. To serve a programmer effectively, it’s set as much as settle for access in hexadecimal, octal, decimal, and binary codecs, and will readily convert between them. Past that, it’s supplied with the standard mathematics operators, in addition to bitwise operations like NOT, AND, and so forth.

In all probability what we like maximum, even though, is the keypad. It was once all put along with a mixture of inexpensive AliExpress keypads, a label maker, and a laser printer. It’s an entirely DIY activity, and a bit tough across the edges, nevertheless it makes the calculator a ways more uncomplicated to make use of.

It’s no longer a precise reproduction of the HP-16C, however the variations in operation are minor.The ones wishing to construct their very own can grasp the desired recordsdata from the venture’s Github web page. We’ve noticed replicas of alternative vintage HP calculators ahead of, too. In the event you’ve were given your individual mathematical initiatives brewing up within the lab, don’t hesitate to ship them in to the tipsline!