Calculator Issues

[Hypersphere]

I inherited a Keuffel & Esser slide rule during my high school days from my next-door neighbor, who was a professional drag racer -- he used a slide rule to do the calculations for his engine designs. I used the K&E throughout high school, college, grad school, and my postdoc. I still have the slide rule, but now I seldom use it.

Somewhere along the way, I started using an HP-15c and an HP-11c. I was hooked on RPN from the get-go, and I still prefer it even on calculator emulators on my computers.

As for calculator emulators, along with RPN when I can get it, I also like calculators that use exact notation for the fundamental numbers such as e, i, and pi. If a calculator knows that e^(i*pi) +1 = 0, then it's got my vote.

[vometia]

I went through school using a slide rule (calculators became commonly available about halfway through my time in college but cost $350 and couldn't even do square roots, so I did not buy one until later).

I bought my first TI-30 somewhere in the early-mid-1980s and have used them ever since. When I run across one at a salvage store or a yard sale for $1-$2 I usually buy it for a backup. For a brief time, in the 1990s I think, there was a thin-profile variant with rubbery buttons that I really liked, but they are hard to find now.

I upgraded my brick to a "slimline" one in the early '80s ish, except that the battery compartment wasn't slimline so it was quite an odd-looking thing.

I inherited a Keuffel & Esser slide rule during my high school days from my next-door neighbor, who was a professional drag racer -- he used a slide rule to do the calculations for his engine designs. I used the K&E throughout high school, college, grad school, and my postdoc. I still have the slide rule, but now I seldom use it.

Somewhere along the way, I started using an HP-15c and an HP-11c. I was hooked on RPN from the get-go, and I still prefer it even on calculator emulators on my computers.

As for calculator emulators, along with RPN when I can get it, I also like calculators that use exact notation for the fundamental numbers such as e, i, and pi. If a calculator knows that e^(i*pi) +1 = 0, then it's got my vote.

I can see the attraction of RPN but I'm not sure my brain wants to work that way: all that sort of stuff like Lisp and Forth was always a bit alien to me.

I ended up getting the TI-36X Pro in the end: it seems to do everything I'm ever likely to need (even though it gets confused by the e^iπ thing) bearing in mind I'm a C hacker, not a mathematician. I really quite like it actually, although lighter than I'd expected it seems solidly made and its display is rather fancy-pants for someone who grew up with eight digits of LED. The buttons have a reasonably nice feel to them though the embossed silver ones are indeed a bit of a design oversight.

As for slide-rules, maybe I'll give them a try when I grow up.

[Ace]

You bought the TI-36X, I see. Just came to say I love the Ti 84. After I got used to beating it around the bag, I stoped caring about the wonky build quality. I won't be changing it for my first year of college.

[JP!]

I picked up a scratched up old TI-86 for $1 at a garage sale. Works great but the menu system is slightly different than say a Ti-83/84.