The Cult of Vintage Tech

Every year when the new iPhones are introduced by Apple, as they a few weeks ago, the debate begins. Are they exciting enough to make people want to upgrade? This question will be debated ad nauseam by the tech bloggers. Though I now wait two or three years before updating my device (passing along my old one to other members of my family, I enjoy seeing the new features and designs and considering whether there is something compelling to make me want to upgrade earlier.

This year, I won’t be upgrading my iPhone 15 Pro, which is working well and does everything I want but I did recently upgrade one piece of my tech kit that has been unchanged for more than 45 years.

In 1981 Hewlett Packard computer company came out with a series of calculators called the Voyager Series (after the spacecrafts that were sent to explore the outer planets of our solar system and are also remarkably still functioning today.

There were various models of these calculators targeted at different customers. There was one for scientists (HP 15C), one for computer programers (HP 16C), and the one I have that was marketed to people who worked in finance, the HP 12C.

The distinguishing feature of all of these calculators was their horizontal layout and their use of RPN, Reverse Polish Notation, for numeric entry.

Most of these calculators were discontinued, leaving a cult following of people who buy, sell and collect them on sites like eBay. But the 12C is still being made and can still be purchased new. They are no longer made in the U.S. and the new ones use a different kind of battery but otherwise the layout of the keys and the function is unchanged. You can buy a new one on Amazon for about $35. There is also a another version called the HP 12C Platinum which has a faster processor and can use algebraic entry in addition to RPN but is otherwise the same. It’s around $5 more.

What does it do and why does it have such a fan base that this piece of 45 year old tech is still being sold unchanged? Well, it does all of the arithmetic functions of any calculator, of course (once you learn the RPM input), but the financial functions are what make it shine. You can do all kinds of financial projections, find the return on an investment, calculate the value of a bond when the prevailing interest rate changes, and the amount of a mortgage payment when the interest rate, term, and amount borrowed are known. You can also write little programs for it that allow you to do things like compare whether it may be better to rent or to buy a place to live. You can calculate the number of days between two dates and the percent difference between two numbers with the touch of a key.

Yes, you can do all these things on a computer with a spreadsheet but there is something very enjoyable about having this computational power on a standalone device you can hold in the palm of your hand. And once you go RPN, you’ll never go back.

My 12C is an original model, made in the US in the 80s. I found it in like new condition on eBay with the box and the original manuals for about $40. Shortly after purchasing around 8 years ago , I had to replace the button batteries but it has run ever since on that same set. There was a learning curve to understand how to use all it’s functions (some of which I still don’t understand) but fortunately, it came with the original manual, which I spent hours working my way through.

I also have a 12c emulator app that runs on my iPhone but the real one is more fun to use.

I didn’t think there was any new feature that could tempt me to upgrade my beloved HP 12C until a few weeks ago, when I saw this clone from a Swiss company called Swiss Micros.

Adopted baby sister from Switzerland

Swiss Micros makes clones of all the old Voyager Series calculators including the 12C in a credit card sized model. When I saw it, I knew I had to have one.

In addition to the tiny size, it has a few other improvements including a two line display and the ability to show the time and date. Nice to have but not game changers.

Though thicker than a credit card it fits in my wallet. Now I can carry my HP 12C functionally on a dedicated device everywhere I go and can always be ready to calculate a loan payment or convert a currency whenever the need may arrive or, more commonly, to calculate the tip in a restaurant.

I still love my original HP 12C. Being larger it is easier to use and the keys are more clicky and feel better. It is still the one I reach for when I am at home. It’s the fountain pen of calculators but not my only vintage one. I also have this Walther WSR 160, one of the last and greatest mechanical pinwheel calculators. No batteries needed.

The last and best of the mechanical calculators — The Walther WSR 160 circa 1960 made in the Federal Republic of Germany. I use it as a calendar which gives me a reason to turn the crank every morning.

Is there a piece of vintage that you still use and love? Are you ever tempted to trade it in for a new model? Drop a comment below. No spouse jokes, please!

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

The Sweetest Fruit

“Oh the foes will rise with the sleep still in their eyes
And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re dreamin’
But they’ll pinch themselves and squeal
and they’ll know that it’s for real
The hour that the ship comes in”

— Bob Dylan

It was at least a dozen years ago, Barbara was getting some landscaping done in our wild, unruly back yard. She asked me if there were any plants or shrubbery that I might like.

“A fig tree,” I replied.

I had visions of sitting under my proverbial fig tree in peace and prosperity and enjoying the bounty of ripe fruit that it was sure to produce.

The fig tree arrived in the form of little more than a stick and I knew it would be many years before it would be large enough to sit under never mind bear fruit. The same year, a neighbor was digging up a more mature (but not by much) fig tree in her yard and asked on the list serve if anyone wanted it. I responded and soon I had it planted next to the other one. Probably too close.

A few of those early years had very cold winters and I was sure that the trees had died but every spring they came back to life. There is an injunction in Jewish law that prohibits harvesting the fruit of a tree for the first three years of its life. Suffice it to say, I never faced any temptation to violate this commandment.

Then around year five, one of the trees produced exactly one fig. I plucked it when ripe and shared it with my wife and daughter and son-in-law who were visiting for lunch. We said the blessing for eating a fruit or doing a thing for the first time in its season.

Blessed are you, source of life, who has given us life, sustained us, and allowed us to reach this moment.

In each subsequent year, the harvest increased a little but very few of the fruits ended up in our larder or tummies.

It turned out that the figs ripened in mid to late August exactly when we are usually away on vacation. By the time we returned home, the trees which had been laden with green fruit when we left had been stripped bare by squirrels, birds, and deer. For a while, we had a groundhog living in a space under the concrete steps that lead to an exit door from the basement. My friend Tom says he sometimes saw the groundhog in the tree happily munching away.

This summer, the trees filled up with the most fruit, I have ever seen on them. Perhaps it was the enormous quantity of rain we got in June and July and the hot humid days we had this summer. I didn’t expect to eat many, however. In late July, with the trees heavy with unripe figs we headed up north for several weeks of biking, hiking and camping on Cape Cod and in the Adirondacks.

Imagine my surprise, when we returned home last week and found the trees full of ripe, purple figs!. Many of them had been nibbled to be sure but there were plenty that were intact. I went out in the cool of the evening and picked a large bowl of them getting eaten in turn by a swarm of gnats sending me running to find the hydrocortisone cream.

The figs were ripe, many overripe and decisions had to be made quickly. A ripe fig doesn’t last long. I though about trying to dry them in the oven but I had bad luck with that last year burning all ten of the figs I got to an inedible crisp.

I decided to make jam, which is easy to do and hard to mess up. You just boil the fruit with water.  I added some lemon juice for brightness and the lemon seeds for the pectin. After fishing out the seeds, I weighed the water and fruit and added the same weight of sugar and cooked it until it got thick with big bubbles and congealed on a plate that had been in the freezer. I got more than  2 pounds of the stuff. I didn’t properly preserve it so it has to be keep in the refrigerator. However, it keeps for a long time because it is basically solid sugar with some fig in it. Still it is very tasty and goes great on a slice of sourdough bread (homemade, of course) with some creamy goat cheese.

I had just finished making the jam when Tom’s wife, Christine, stopped by. She had brought us a gift. It was a whale butter dish like the one I had been tempted by on Nantucket but hadn’t bought. She had found it online at a very reasonable price, she proudly told us. We sent her off with a jar of still-warm jam and half a loaf of sourdough that I had also made that day.

Good things come in the fullness of time though they may not line up exactly with the original vision. I had imagined sitting under my fig trees as ripe fruit dropped into my lap. The reality is sitting on the screened porch (no gnats!) and enjoying fig jam and butter from a blue whale on fresh bread.

And still more figs ripen everyday. As we enjoy these cooler evenings dining on the porch, after dinner I walk out to the fig trees and pick a handful to enjoy as dessert. My patience paid off. The ship has come in. I pinch myself and squeal.

Here is a poem I wrote about figs, jam, and the ephemeral.

Elul

We arrived home to find the tree heavy

with fruit, some rotting,

bees delirious with their good fortune.

Today, we blessed the new month

the year’s farewell.

The sun sleeps in.  Already, it is cooler.

Days feel snug like last year’s jacket.

Fig jam bubbles on the stove —

summer surrendering her sweetness.

***

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.

Signal and Noise

“The signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth. ”

— Nate Silver

Our world is saturated with human made noise. From the hum of the refrigerator to the sounds of cars and airplanes, the cacophony of the modern world is almost inescapable. 

Much of this noise is unnecessary. For example, many cars honk each time they are locked or unlocked. On most cars that can be disabled but few people take the trouble to do it. Or perhaps they like the honking. 

I’ve been in doctor’s waiting rooms where up to three different individuals were listening to some kind of programming on their phones with the speaker blasting at full volume, or having loud public phone conversations. Simple wired earbuds can be had for just a few dollars. 

As I write this piece in a relatively quiet vacation rental I still hear traffic sounds, an airplane, the ticking of a clock, and the churning of the dishwasher. 

Once you notice how noisy the world is, you can’t un-hear it (you’re welcome).

So, if you have a chance to escape the din for a moment or two, you must take a moment to notice and savor it. 

I had an opportunity to be in such a place this past week but it wasn’t easy to get to. 

The Adirondack State Park in the northeast corner of New York State is the largest state park in the U.S. other than those in Alaska. The park is partly developed but it has some large tracts of complete wilderness as well. Much of this wilderness contains the High Peaks, a group of 46 mountains each of which is more than 4,000ft/1,300m above sea level. Barbara and I decided to climb one of the more remote peaks called Seymour Mountain. 

In order to get to the base of Seymour, we had to drive 40 minutes from Lake Placid to the tiny town of Corey, N.Y. From there you turn down a country road which eventually becomes unpaved. Then it’s another 5 miles of gravel to get to the trail head. After parking and signing in at the register (safety!), you hike about 6 miles on a marked trail to arrive at the base of the mountain. The trail to the summit is unmarked and the place at which you turn off the main trail is marked only with a pile of rocks called a cairn. 

The ‘herd path,’ created by thousands of hikers having gone before, passes through dense woods but is easy to follow. The trail ascends along a brook to gain about 2,000ft/660m of elevation over the course of about 1.5 miles/2.4km to reach a viewless summit among thick trees. 

Somewhere along this ascent, I paused to give my pounding heart a respite. Barbara was a few hundred feet ahead, and as the panting of my breath began to still, I slowly became aware of the quiet. Not a lack of sound. The forest was filled with birdsong, insect noise and the burbling of the creek. But not a human sound to be heard save the beating of my own heart. No airplanes, no cars, not even the footsteps of another person. 

I tried to recall the last time I was in such a place. It may have been when I was in these woods two years ago. How many more times will I have the privilege to stand somewhere like this? How can we hope to remain tuned to the signal when we dwell among constant human noise? And the noisiest place of all? It may be your own mind. 

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.