Need a 15c-LE Incentive

[Matt Agajanian]

Hello all

As the 15c-LE is definitely enhanced with a faster CPU than the original, what other modifications, functions, benefits does the LE have over the original? Also, what bugs do I need to be aware of? Or do the bugs cancel out the benefit of this upgrade to the 15c?

[Don Shepherd]

Matt, a quick search of the archives will answer your questions, I believe.

[Matt Agajanian]

Unless I'm using the wrong terms ("15C LE"), all I'm getting are WP-34S posts.

[Peter Murphy (Livermore)]

Try googling with this search term:

15C LE bug site:*.hpmuseum.org

[Jeff O.]

The 15C LE offers no additional functionality over the original 15C. Benefits are that it exists at all (i.e. no need to pay a fortune on eBay if you want a 15C to use) and much higher speed.

Here is the bug list article. Only you can decide if the benefits outweigh the bugs.

(Based on tests I performed, it is my opinion that power drain and battery life are not a big issue. The lack of graceful low-battery detection and shut-down is a big issue. The various instances of display flashing are odd and annoying, but not really harmful as they can be cleared easily. The Pause bug is a real problem if you often use multiple pause instructions in a program, the only way around is to replace with a R/S and then restart manually.)

Edited: 28 Apr 2012, 5:38 p.m.

[Matt Agajanian]

To be truthfully honest here, the 15C represents a very important legacy product. Thus, the LE's development as a tribute, homage (or whatever respectable recognition HP puts on the 15C and its significance), should be enough for HP to take better care to release a fully stable reissue of such an important calculator.

Let me put it another way. Had the 12C been plagued with errors and bugs, TI would've again taken the lead in now BOTH education and financial calculator markets. So, HP must be doing 'something' right for the 12C to remain a de facto standard and pinnacle for a financial market to keep buying these and the 17B series. So, why is HP dropping the ball on its scientific calculator development?

Now that I've gotten it off my chest, yes, perhaps equipping myself with clever coding to avoid the LE mishaps as well as bolstering strong stamina to put up with the LE glitches when I come across them. I'm not there yet to go to HP.com and buy one right this second, but I'm giving the 15C LE a much fairer consideration.

Edited: 28 Apr 2012, 6:23 p.m.

[Katie Wasserman]

I consider the power issues the biggest problems on the 15C LE. The 12C+ (also AE) shares some of those problems, in particular the lack of a useful low battery indication and brown-out power down. You will loose memory when the batteries get low enough on both of these machines. Not as big a deal on the 12C+/AE becasue it has less to loose, but HP has not addressed that issue and like you said it's the de facto standard in the financial market. The 12C+/AE also has the 2-second time-out keyboard test issue, it's not a bug-free upgrade of the original.

[Dwight Sturrock]

Depending on frequency of use, perhaps it would be best to replace the HP15C LE batteries on schedule. Once every 6 months, or each quarter. Find out when they go bad, then just replace earlier to avoid program loss.

With my HP42Ss, it seldom varied-- I usually only got 6 months of use for a set of batteries. That was with fairly heavy use- programming, printing, etc.

[Steve Fennell]

Quote:

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So, why is HP dropping the ball on its scientific calculator development?

---

The likely answer is that there is no longer a market for scientific calculators except in education. The professional market has dried up. I've watched new engineers enter the workforce for years armed with TI graphing calculators and use them as four-bangers on the job. I think there's just not much need for a complicated programmable scientific and most engineers don't use them to the fullest extent when so much PC software is available to do the same job.

I hope HP continues to develop the 50g into the future, and I like the 15C as well, but I find myself using free42 far more often than anything else.

[Software49g]

> I hope HP continues to develop the 50g into the future

You mean this two people that are overworked and underpaid

and who are the calculator development department?

And who are forced to rush out buggy products?



Hopefully your hope is not based on the fact that there has been

no ROM update for over three years now ...

And updating this machine would be so *easy* compared in

recreating everything from scratch, which is most unlikely anyway

in case of the 50g.

Just put in some more memory, there is already a HAL through the

Saturnator, put in a larger screen and adjust the software *while*

being compatible to the existing platform.



Yeah, I know it is not the ideal technical solution, but at least it would

be *something*. And as I said around a half year ago – if that would

have been started by then there would be something *now*.





Apple (so well praised by HP’s CEO) can do it (with the iPad), HP can’t ?



Regards,

Andreas

http://www.software49g.gmxhome.de