Who has the highest 15c LE number?
#1

Might be a good indication of how many have been sold and how many are left to be delivered. I've got 2306 purchased from buy.com on the first day of availablity. That's one of the highest numbers I've seen. It would appear there are still in excess of 7,000 units that have not made it to retail yet which should help on the $200+ prices they are currently commanding.

Seems like they are trickling in on the slow boats from China.

#2

We did use a mix of air and ocean shipment, and I have the highest number at 888,888, which is not indicative of the total number produced.

#3

Quote:
which is not indicative of the total number produced

Would you indicated what that number is? 10,000 has been assumed here by some, but has HP stated that officially that I know of.

-Katie

#4

I have 2852 but i believe someone posted a high 2900 number on here.

#5

Unfortunately, I can't share that information.

#6

2953

#7

No one expects HP to reveal the amount, but at least you had the guts to ask, Katie.

I started thinking. Googling revealed that standard shipping containers are either 1172 CF or 2390 CF. The 15c LE presentation box is approximately 2.7"x6.3"x8.7", or 0.0856 CF each (calc'd on 15c, verified with attached units on 48sx). I'm going to add 15% to account for corrugated shipping box and dead space in the container. (0.0984 CF/15c).

That indicates full containers might hold either about 11,900 or 24,300 calculators. What does this tell us? Nothing, basically. But I had fun doing it.

#8

2990 (from buy.com via ebay)

#9

Not really "guts", I just want to have some idea of what "Limited" means in HP's corporate head.

(Unfortunately that head seems to be rather variable these days. Make the Tocuhpad, drop the Touchpad. Hire Apotheker, fire Apotheker. Buy Compaq for their PC business, sell the whole thing.)

#10

There is actually a decent way to estimate this under the assumption that serial numbers are allocated sequentially (which means we'd discount the #888,888 unit).

If the highest serial number seen is s in a sample of n serial numbers, then the estimate for the total number produced is s + s/n - 1. From memory, this is the minimum variance unbiased estimator -- i.e. it has some good optimality properties.

For those interested, this is known as the "German tank problem" and it came about because the (Western) allied forces in the second World War needed to know how many tanks the Germans had. German tanks being better meant that a significant numeric superiority was required. However, the method is applicable to just about any problem were you have a sequential numbering to sample from.


- Pauli

#11

When the 888,888 number was mentioned in this thread, I went fishing and got a half-answer about the number of units produced.

I ordered a unit from HP. It arrived today. #01436


Edited: 21 Sept 2011, 7:30 p.m.

#12

Quote:
When the 888,888 number was mentioned in this thread, I went fishing and got a half-answer about the number of units produced.

You mean the half answer is:
Quote:
Message #6 Posted by Glenn Dowdy on 11 Sept 2011, 9:03 p.m.,
in response to message #5 by Tim Wessman

Highest: me, at 888,888

Message #7 Posted by NateB on 11 Sept 2011, 10:31 p.m.,
in response to message #6 by Glenn Dowdy

At least they've made more than 10,000 units.

Message #8 Posted by Tim Wessman on 11 Sept 2011, 10:38 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by NateB

That was a single, special one on request.

TW


Do you mean that by inference Tim was saying (at least not denying) that in fact, 10,000 is the number?
#13

Interesting stuff and good to know if we're ever at war with the HP calculator division!

The problem with this method of analysis is that it only tells you how many calculators (or tanks, whatever) have been distributed up to this point or projecting into the future at a constant rate. But we know that the future is "limited" and I don't see how this will help until all the calculators that will be distributed are distributed.

#14

It only estimates the number distributed if they are distributed starting from number one onwards. I very much doubt this is the case, they'll most likely be distributed a little more randomly than that but not completely at random -- cases will be opened and units shipped from that case but a new case won't be opened until the old one is finished.

If the units are being shipped out at random then it will provide an estimate of the total number shipped. However, it breaks down once all of them have been shipped and sold and the sample size gets large in proportion to the total.

Still it might be a start...


- Pauli

#15

Tim, Cyrille and I were not involved in any of the above decisions, except as passengers.

#16

Quote:
There is actually a decent way to estimate this under the assumption that serial numbers are allocated sequentially [...] "German tank problem"

Unfortunately, the estimators used in the German tank problem assume a uniformly random sampling of serial numbers. This does not seem to be the case here.

Edited: 23 Sept 2011, 4:57 a.m.

#17

My two 15C's arrived today - got quite early numbers: 560 & 575. So excited I feel like a big kid!

#18

02966 from Samson, dispatched on Sep 14th

#19

02977 from Samson.

Shipped on 14th; received here in the Toronto area on the 23rd.

As we know, mail to Canada from the USA takes longer than it does to Europe, and just about anywhere else.

#20

yup, it takes quite a while on the Elk Express :-)

#21

555 and 579 from SC.

Shipped on 13., collected from customs on 28.



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