EEVblog #1093 - Casio FX260 Solar II Calculator Review

[Fungus]

Very disappointed to see that you're not part of the the RPN chosen ones Dave.

I don't think RPN vs. Algebraic is a battle that can be won. Be happy that both exist (why can't calculators be switchable between the two?)

I'm a big fan of the Casio brand but their calculators haven't improved since the 1980s, they've just fitted them with worse keyboards.

(and not just Casio, Sharp, etc., too)

As Dave noted, things like the 'HYP' key are completely useless, there's no way it should still be taking up so much real estate after all these years when more common functions need a shift key.

Currently using this one..

Not quite as nice as the original 42s but not too bad!

Interesting that the Swiss Micro guy appears to be making some sales. You'd think HP would be cashing in on that.

(HP still manufactures the 12C. The 15C/16C are just different keyboard/firmware, it would cost them almost nothing to make a few of each model).

[Fungus]

Calculator war!

Is it just me or isn't the "pocket" calculator much smaller than the ordinary ones? What is it, 10% smaller...? Hardly worth the effort. Looks thicker then the full size ones, too.

I was just looking to see if there's a really small, name-brand, scientific calculator, and ... there isn't one!  What happened to the time when the Japanese tried to make everything tiny?

Credit-card sized, no-name for $0.60? No problem...

[malagas_on_fire]

Ok here are some calculators that i have:

- Catiga CS-121 bought in promotion ( 10 euro) . Scientific / graphic , bad typing. 2 years
- Casio fx-570w : Used from college to university back from 1998. It's now on my current job and working good
- Ti-89: An offer from a friend if i could repair it and another computer.  it is old has 18 years Its repaired and working.
- Casio SL-1000TW. Compact, basic ,big 10 digits, dual power easy to type and calculate percentages ( from measurements), has well H/M/S feature for calculating charging times of batteries . A couple of mounths .

Here's my Casio FX-570W at my work,, very usefull . Very good for it's price:

[EEVblog]

Very disappointed to see that you're not part of the the RPN chosen ones Dave.

I own at least half a dozen RPN calculators.
Even my uCalc has RPN.

[EEVblog]

I do believe you have me to thank for the parallel button on that HP WP-34S 
I remember the develop of that calc and was involved in it at the time on the HP museum forum.  I talked them into adding the parallel button.

[Fungus]

I do believe you have me to thank for the parallel button on that HP WP-34S 
I remember the develop of that calc and was involved in it at the time on the HP museum forum.  I talked them into adding the parallel button.

I don't even know what it does. 

[palpurul]

These are mine 

[rsjsouza]

I don't think RPN vs. Algebraic is a battle that can be won. Be happy that both exist (why can't calculators be switchable between the two?)

The HP35S switches between the two, and I heard a few others also do that (HP49 or HP50).

[Fungus]

I don't think RPN vs. Algebraic is a battle that can be won. Be happy that both exist (why can't calculators be switchable between the two?)

The HP35S switches between the two, and I heard a few others also do that (HP49 or HP50).

Interesting. I can definitely see the HP heritage in that one. I might look into a new HP if my 20S ever breaks.

(which it probably never will, and I've got a spare one somewhere...)

[Fungus]

69 factorial in half a second or so

This made me.

I remember doing 69! back in the '80s - we'd all get our calculators together and do 69! simultaneously to see which was fastest.

Before today, though, I had zero idea that it was such a universal calculator benchmark. 

PS: 69!? Meet your nemesis: 253!

[EEVblog]

If you're going for RPN then the sideways format of the HP Voyagers (10C/11C/12C/15C/etc.) is the way to go, surely.

I love sideways calculators. This is (a photoshopped version of) the calculator HP should have made...

I remember that back in my HP Museum forum days, everyone would just photoshop their dream calc.
My Mk2 uWatch Calc while it existed was essentially developed on the forum, and the uCalc had some design feedback on there too.

[EEVblog]

Interesting. I can definitely see the HP heritage in that one. I might look into a new HP if my 20S ever breaks.

Ah, the non-RPN HP for pussies 
(I have one), spotted in the wild in the early days at Altium:

[EEVblog]

Another photoshop, the HP 43S

[rsjsouza]

69 factorial in half a second or so

This made me.

I remember doing 69! back in the '80s - we'd all get our calculators together and do 69! simultaneously to see which was fastest.

Before today, though, I had zero idea that it was such a universal calculator benchmark. 

PS: 69!? Meet your nemesis: 253!

When I found out my HP48SX could go beyond 10⁹⁹ I was astonished and slowly tried all factorial numbers up to this limit. It took about 3 seconds to compute this result. The HP35S takes 1/2 second, as well as my wife's HP48GX (used a faster clock when compared to the SX). In the old days, my Casio fx39 did 69! in about 10 seconds. My dad's TI-59 did not have a built-in factorial function and I had to program it - the fastest I could get in a very optimized code took about 12 seconds.

Another photoshop, the HP 43S

To me the display and number of display and key rows is so close to the HP48 models that I think it was actually brought to life!

To me the HP48 is the Fluke 289 of calculators: very large and full featured but without the ludicrous battery consumption (unless you used the IR link all the time), but YMMV.

[NivagSwerdna]

I do believe you have me to thank for the parallel button on that HP WP-34S 
I remember the develop of that calc and was involved in it at the time on the HP museum forum.  I talked them into adding the parallel button.

I don't even know what it does. 

100 Enter 100 || gives 50

I think it takes two numbers and if they are the same it divides them in half. 

[Zad]

Or just add conductances:
press (R1)inv+(R2)inv+.....=(inv)
 
I guess that shows the number of "engineers" these days who didn't have a formal education.

[Fungus]

100 Enter 100 || gives 50

I think it takes two numbers and if they are the same it divides them in half. 

Does it give 18.75 if I type "75 Enter 25 ||" ?

[Howardlong]

In case folks weren’t aware, HP have official paid for apps for IOS and Android covering the 12C, 15C and Prime.

I have the 15C and Prime Pro apps on and iPhone and iPad, and they are about as good as it gets for a calculator app: they are both excellent reproductions of the real thing. I don’t know the difference between the Lite and Pro versions of the Prime, I suspect some functions are crippled on the Lite version.

There is also an official PC version of the HP Prime, but I find running it on IOS a better experience.

The HP Prime is an interesting calculator, you can even do Matlab style vector and matrix stuff on it which makes it useful for me. I find the keyboard on the real thing to be a failure of visible design, it’s really difficult to read the orange key functions on the physical unit, but it’s not at all a problem on the app.

[mathsquid]

Since people are posting their collections of calculators, here is mine.

[Fungus]

In case folks weren’t aware, HP have official paid for apps for IOS and Android covering the 12C, 15C and Prime.

I have the 15C and Prime Pro apps on and iPhone and iPad, and they are about as good as it gets for a calculator app:

I mentioned the 15C app on the previous page. 

If you need a fix of HP calculator on the move then it's the way to go.

In landscape mode the app is a perfect replica of a 15C.

If you rotate to portrait mode it becomes an RPN "six-banger", like this:


(you can lock the rotation so it's a permanent 15C but I quite like the six-banger)

(nb. I don't own a 15C to compare, only an 11C, but it's enough to form an opinion)


This has now turned from a Casio thread into an HP thread. 

[Fungus]

Since people are posting their collections of calculators, here is mine.

 

I'm not really a calculator collector. I think there's five or six in the house but nothing special apart from my 2 HPs and a green-screen Casio.

As a 'collector' I'm more into analog and mechanical devices. Slide rules, Curtas, etc. I've got quite a few of those...

[NivagSwerdna]

100 Enter 100 || gives 50

I think it takes two numbers and if they are the same it divides them in half. 

Does it give 18.75 if I type "75 Enter 25 ||" ?

Might do. 

[Howardlong]

Here's an interesting one. While I do have a pilots licence, I've never bothered to try to figure out how to use its navigation functions, but I did fall in love with all those impressive looking buttons.

[Fungus]

I love sideways calculators. This is the calculator HP should have made...

I remember that back in my HP Museum forum days, everyone would just photoshop their dream calc.

RPN makes a squillion times more sense if you can see the stack contents. A multi-line display on a 15C would be awesome.

AFAIK the guy at Swiss Micro does his calculators via. an emulator and a copy of the original HP ROM. It would be difficult for him to add new functions to a calculator but he could easily do a multi-line display directly from the emulator's copy of the CPU registers.

A multi-line 15C with smooth animated up-down scrolling of the stack registers as you type? I could be tempted by that.

Edit: I just joined the HP museum to post this crazy idea over there. In passing I saw a few posts by a user called "DaveJ".

[capt bullshot]

Bet you'll have difficulties to get such one now:


And this one is the one I used most, but now it's out of batteries: