Favorite calculator

This is my favorite calculator:

I have two, not working, that I plan to fix, if I ever get the time.

I have two older ti any light. I actually used one today, but some keys are stubborn.

Greg

Did you have them when they still worked? I wonder how long they lasted.

I have a couple of calculators I've used for almost 30 years.

he

HP-41CV. In my opinion, best calculator HP ever made.

I can't make up my mind. I've got an HP-28S (just upgraded from an HP-28 when I found a near mint condition one for $40). I've got an HP-41C with card reader and 30 odd years of programs written and stored. For bit twiddling, an HP-16C.

And I've got a whole drawer full of slide rules.

Anyone know where I can lay my hands on a good Curta Mark II?

Why do you think they call it "Reverse Polish" ?:-)

Real analog (Algebraic) thinkers use a crufty old TI-60X ...Jim Thompson

I bought both of mine, dead, from Los Alamos Sales. I did have a new one ca 1968, and I used it, among other things, to simulate throttle control systems for the LASH (32,000 shp steam turbine) ships. I got a PDP-8 in 1969, and an HP35 in 1972. The 9100 was worth a Cadillac, the PDP was worth more than a Jaguar, and the HP35 was more than a small motorcycle.

All my HP35's have gone flakey. Pity. It was the best engineering calc ever.

Somebody should do a clone HP35, with a pic inside or something.

They are on ebay, but bring $$$$!! I've seen 'em fer under $1K, but I doubt those work. Going price for a working model is $1K-4K.

I used a new one back in '60-61 when I was a teen. They were only $100.

nb

I used to use an HP35, it finally died. I got an HP28C from a guy that didn't want to deal with the expensive batteries. I taped a pack of NiCd batteries to the back, and it works great.

On the computer, I use grpn, essentially an HP RPN emulator. There was one of these for the palm pilot, too.

Jon

HP-41CV. In my opinion, best calculator HP ever made.

====================

I'll second that.

the

I've got an fx-82Ms (battery powered) and and fx-992V (solar powered). Both do hyperbolic trignometric functions as well as the conventional ones. It's handier to key stuff into them than to switch contexts on the PC, and I mostly use them for doing reciprocals to sort out sums of impedances.

I quite liked working reverse Polish on the HP calculators, but they cost too much for what they did.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

he

1. for scientific: Favorite is the TI-36X Solar, around when I found it years ago, buttons all still work great. NO MORE BATTERIES! Always on!
2. for hex math and conversion: the little calculator built into Windows98
3. for complex formulas: octave [free Matlab clone] just type in, script, or write your won function, no matter how complicated you want it to get! simply type in the formula, or already have the function. Forgot how to use the function? just type help FunctionName and it'll show you what you were supposed to enter.

=A0 =A0 ...Jim Thompson

=A0 =A0| =A0 =A0mens =A0 =A0 |

=A0 | =A0 =A0 et =A0 =A0 =A0|

=A0|

=A0 =A0 =A0 |

Thank you!

I was at HP when Bill developed the famous first HP35 calculator! I actually programmed the first desktop (9100?) to print my name in script any size, any slope, looked just like handwriting too. Stored the program on that little round edged magnetic card.

So my first learning was using RP. Yet, when I got my hands on a TI !!!! I quickly abandoned RP for more intuitive entry techniques.

Would that include the sqrt(2) bug? ;-)

Hi, Bob,

Do you have any pull at HP? I have two 9100's that I'd like to repair, but HP never published schematics beyond the power supply and CRT circuits. I've contacted the HP historian several times and she says, yes, we have the schematics and no, you can't see them.

So, 9100s are going into dumpsters because HP still thinks the schematics are proprietary.

What could be more intuitive than RPN? Typing nested parentheses?

It makes sense in the usual bean-counter's mindset: They don't want you to fix the old calculator. They want you to buy a new one.

I started out using a TI SR51. Once I got my hands on an RPN calculator, I never looked back. I think it's weird that any scientific/technical person would want anything else.

Jeroen Belleman

HP 32S, because it's RPN. It could make the switch from hex to decimal easier, but it's OK.

The calculator that comes with Ubuntu has the nice feature that it doesn't automatically turn decimal numbers into integers when going to hex: it preserves the stuff to the right of the radix point. This is handy when you're doing DSP, where you often want to go to a fixed-point representation that throws away all or part of the integer portion and keeps the stuff to the right of the decimal point.

I had a nice RPN calculator app that I wrote in C++ that was nice, but I lost the code at some point. I do have a half-completed RPN calculator project in Java, but I haven't touched it for years: maybe if I retire I'll have enough time.

It is fun when someone in my office picks up my HP32 and tries to add some numbers.

I can't figure out how people can use algebraic calculators. Every one is different.