Choosing a calculator

Yeah, had mine since '96. I'll no doubt will it to my grandkids. ;)

My favorite anecdote on HP48's concerns an eng class. It was a class on eng economics and included figuring costs plus compounded interest on long term projects. I'd downloaded a neat little program from the web onto my 48 that was perfect. One day I was showing it off to a couple guys in my class. One also had a 48 and expressed interest. I told him to lay his 48 on the table. I did the same, head to head with his 48, pressed a couple buttons, and told him the program was now loaded on his 48. Blew his mind! He had no idea. ;)

nb

Get a HP 28s on ebay for $25 with two 350 page manuals. Does everything, graphs, equations, programs, games, converts units, and has

32K memory. It's a stack computer that can accept a few hundred entries on the stack to manipulate in different ways. Also has a solver function where the function keys represent different variables of an equation, so you can just change one variable value to get a new answer. It's a blast, I love it. It's the last calculator I will ever need.

-Bill

I already own a HP28S, and have owned seveal other model HP's over the years. The 28S sits on the shelf gathering dust because for everyday electronics design use it's a pain in the butt to use and incredibly inefficient. Direct Algebraic Casio's are by far more efficient and intuitive, and the buttons you need to use every day don't need a shift function or some other convoluted method to call up. I've explored and used both architectures with an open mind for the past 15 years and my conclusion is you simply can't beat the Casio for everyday engineering use IMHO.

Dave :)

[snip...snip...]

I agree, with the caveat that most (all?) of the little Casios have a radix mode that is separate from the normal algebraic mode. That is, if I grind through a gain calculation to a voltage divider and then an A/D scaling, I can't just poke a "convert this result to hex" key.

Switching to radix mode clears the accumulator, so there's an extra, annoying step to re-enter the remembered decimal result and then do the base conversion (and an additional opportunity for operator error).

Not an issue, of course, if one is pushing electrons and not banging on code...

The behavior of the Sharp family is closer to what I like, by having the base conversion "with" the other algebraic manipulations. The base conversions truncate to an integer result, though; I'd really prefer an equivalent fixed point result with values on both sides of the radix point.

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Rich Webb   Norfolk, VA

Thank you very very much all of you. Sorry for replying a bit late but I was busy with some of my assignments. Now that I have checked back, i was surprised by the number of generous replies and the amount of information you guys provided me. I have taken the notes and will go to market in a day or two to have a hands on experience and buy one. Thanks again. you guys ROCK!

Just out of curiosity, how many key strokes does the Casio require to solve an equation, other than entering the data?

Take a compound interest problem for example where P = P*(1+R) ^Y

The HP 28s allows a function key to be defined to process that formula based on the lower 3 entries on the stack. So, all I have to do is enter 3 numbers (principal, rate, and years) and then press one function key to get the answer. $100 at 6% for 10 years is $179.

How easy is it to do with the Casio calculator?

-Bill

Trick question. Normals DAL Casio's *aren't* programmable, and that example really requires a programmable calculator, so it's not a relevant question. In that case I'd use Excel or get a programable calculator.

I'm not saying that a DAL Casio takes the place of a good programmable calculator, it clearly doesn't. It's just that in my experience, 99.9% of the time I pick up a calculator for engineering use I only need to do basic math that a DAL Casio is ideally suited for. That's why I have both, but the HP28S gathers dust and the Casio gets used every day.

Your millage may vary of course...

Dave :)

A bit annoying, but that's what the memory key is for, no operator error possible there. Many Casios will also have 6 additional "constant memories" to hold temporay stuff like that in complex work where the one memory key is not enough.

Dave :)

You wouldn't happen to have a like new HP32S in a drawer, somewhere, would you?

I would give you a fair price for it.

No, sorry. I had a HP42s but sold it a few years back. Bought it for $5 at a pawn shop! It didn't have many buttons so they figured it wasn't worth much!

Dave :)

Oh, well. I have a 42S, also, but as far as I am concerned, they got everything just right in the 32S.

"David L. Jones" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

Just six? Are they using CPU registers to hold the data?

The TI-89 gives you up to 99 (default's 30) spaces, so I assume they're using main memory. Puckdropper

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Wise is the man who attempts to answer his question before asking it.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm

Yep, plenty, this is not a programable calculator remember.

Maybe, but no real idea, all casios use a custom ASIC Dave :)

The one with the biggest display and most buttons. Sort out which ones you actually use later on.

- YD.

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Remove HAT if replying by mail.

A calculator is a workhorse. It's for calculating. Forget about the fancy, frou-frou crap like graphing, complex programming and musical notes...that's what your computer is for.

You want a calculator with all the common mathematical functions like trig, logarithms, roots & powers, etc. Metric conversion, degrees/radians, %-change and dec/binary/hex are nice too. Some have hyperbolic functions, but I don't think you'd use them much in electronics, unless you're calculating weight loads from power transmission lines. Simple programming can sometimes come in handy for crunching out numbers from the same formula over and over.

I would also highly recommend that you get an RPN calculator. If you ever plan on plugging numbers into a formula any more complex than a high-school arithmetic problem, you willl thank me for this advice. You can learn it in one evening and it will drastically reduce your calculation time and errors. I talked a 62-year-old colleague of mine into buying one recently and he said, "Jesus Christ! Why was I wasting my time all those years?"

You just want something simple and easy to read and use that will fit into your breast pocket and that you can whip out and crunch out figures quickly with. That's what it's for. I personally own an HP-32S and I love it.

Don Kansas City

"Don A. Gilmore" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com:

*snip*

If you're doing a school degree, the advanced programming may come in handy. Not for the ability to BS you way through your BS degree, but for time and accuracy when taking tests.

Being a CS major (electronics are a hobby) I found I used the programmable calculator to get me through my Numerical Methods classes.

If you're using the calculator for Calculus you'll definately want a TI-

1. At my school, it's rare you'll be allowed more than a TI-83 (84's the same calc) but you can't do all the stuff with less.

Puckdropper

--
Wise is the man who attempts to answer his question before asking it.

To email me directly, send a message to puckdropper (at) fastmail.fm