The HP calculator enthusiast community has long had calculator emulators running on the PC. Now HP itself has entered the market with multiple offerings running on PCs and Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. “We just felt that HP calculator emulators should really come from HP,” said HP’s Director of Calculator Product Development Sam Kim.

HP 15c calculator emulation running on an Apple iPhone

The first calculator emulations from HP that run on the PC include:

• HP 12c
• HP 12c Platinum edition
• HP 20b
• HP 35s

The first calculator emulations from HP that run on Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch include:

• HP 12c
• HP 12c Platinum edition
• HP 15c

The emulations all run the original code from the corresponding original calculators so the virtual calculators produce precisely the same results as the real calculators—only they produce answers much faster because the underlying PC and iPhone/iPod Touch microprocessors run at hundreds of MHz instead of a few MHz. HP developed microprocessor emulators for both host platforms.

HP 35s calculator emulation running on a PC

The original HP 12c and HP 15c calculators were based on HP’s proprietary 4-bit Saturn Nut series of calculator microprocessors. However, HP recently introduced a new, much faster version of the HP 12c that employs an Atmel implementation of the 32-bit ARM 7 processor running a software emulation of HP's Saturn microprocessor. The HP 35s, introduced a couple of years ago, and the HP 12c Platinum calculators were based on the incredibly long-in-the-tooth, 8-bit 6502 microprocessor architecture, which you would find under the hood of the original Apple II microcomputer circa 1977. The HP 20b, a relatively new calculator, is also based on Atmel's implementation of the ARM 7 microprocessor, which itself was developed in the 1980s. Each microprocessor naturally requires a different software emulator and HP offers a calculator manager for people who buy more than one of its virtual calculators.

The PC-based virtual HP calculators cost $9.99 to $29.99 and are available directly from HP’s Web site. The iPhone/iPod Touch virtual HP calculators cost $14.99 to $29.99 and are available through Apple’s App Store. All virtual HP calculators are immediately available. HP may develop more such virtual calculators and thus resuscitate more of its classic machines, depending on the success of this initial batch.