Dad & His HP-15C (and Mine)

Many of you know that we lost my dad earlier this year, and that the process of dealing with the aftereffects has taken a lot of my energy the past six months. Such is life in the modern age. With some luck that process is coming toward its end, though. And there’s been a little more time to decompress lately. That’s all good. It’s meant that I’ve been able to step back and take in more of the “smaller” bits about him and his life, which is nice. I donated a few silly little bits of his childhood to a museum in his hometown of South Bend, Indiana, for example. That was nice. And I’ve gotten a few things to some of his friends and their families. That’s nice, too.

Today I’m sitting here and looking at his old HP-15C—which is a calculator he bought back in the golden days of calculators. The handbook is dated March of 1982, anyway. Which makes sense. Dad was a professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Louisville back then. He was always into the latest computing environment, and would often lug home “portable” PCs (the Rainbow DEC is one I remember because I got to program on it when I was a kid—on my way to becoming a Mechanical Engineer, myself).

Anyway, he bought the HP-15C early. Because of course he did.

It was awesome. A heavy slab of electronics, highly capable and fully programmable. I remember him working with it excessively. It was a beautiful thing, really. The photo above is his machine, complete with his manual etching of his name and address (at the time). That’s the kind of thing he did—labeling things. Hand-etching them. And I remember it expressly because that year I was also at the University of Louisville, and I remember it expressly because he saw I loved it so much he bought me one for my birthday. So, yes, I have my own, still complete with its carrying case.

We would compare notes on our usage at times.

I’d program various equations into mine—like he did. And I programmed a dice rolling thing that I could use for my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns…like he didn’t. Dad was never much into D&D. But he was into that calculator—so into it that, unlike most of his equipment, he kept it with him literally forever. Over the years we’d compare notes on how it was working. Talk about how (I think) both of us had only changed batteries once each. Perhaps computers and phones and whatnot have overcome the need for the handheld calculator, but the damned things run forever, now, don’t they?

As the years went past, neither one of us would decide to get rid of ours.

He had it on his desk as he and Mom retired to Tucson.

He had it on his desk when we moved to be near them, and he had it on his desk the day he passed.

It’s on my desk now of course.

I’m sure I’ll keep it around.