There’s a saying “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”. And the HP 12C is the poster boy for this adage. For 30 years, HP’s calculator is still functional and it’s more than enough to do the functions that it was assigned to do.

The device was first launched in September 1, 1981. And it wasn’t a revolutionary product but it has proven its worth as 30 years down the line, the humble calculator makes finance, business and school work muh easier. The fact that it’s one of the only two calculators that are allowed during financial professional certification exams helps a lot in the product’s longevity.

It was able to reach 3 decades without undergoing a redesign or being replaced by another product because of its compact design. The product manager of this handy device, Dennis Harms believes that one of the main factors of the calculator’s success is it was one of the first calculators that had Reverse Polish Notation (RPN) which, according to him, improved efficiency.

With calculator back then if people were to add 1 to 1, they’d have to go through a long process. Press 1 and then hit enter, press 1 and then hit enter, now press the plus sign and you get 2. Now, you hit 1, then the plus sign, hit 1 again and then the equals sign. That’s 5 is to 4 buttons. The number grows as the equation goes longer.

Apple should learn much from the HP 12C, but it’s more of a marketing strategy on their end to keep people buying their products.

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