Calculator recommendation?

[Hydrawerk]

http://education.ti.com/en/us/products/calculators/scientific-calculators/ti-36x-pro/tabs/overview
Too small display IMHO. The FX-5800P is better. And it has some programming.

[Hydrawerk]

Well, this color Casio FX-CG10 calculator looks sexy, but I will never buy it. I can use Matlab instead...
In Czech Republic, we don't use graphic calculators at all. But no, we are not a non-developed country. My schoolmates have expensive smartphones, notebooks and mobile phones...

[Hydrawerk]

Well, I prefer calculators (with monochrome display), that run on AAA batteries for 6 months or even much more. I am not gonna recharge my calculator like a mobile phone. 

[NiHaoMike]

My TI89 Titanium lasts a very long time between charges as long as I use the low self discharge NiMHs. They still have a tendency to run out when least expected so I added a built in charger that simply charges from the USB. Graphing is quite slow so that's the tradeoff for optimizing for good battery life. (And if you're thinking of overclocking it, you can't or at least I haven't figured out a way.)
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/reviews/teardown-ti-89-titanium/

[Zad]

Do people ever do any serious graphing with their calculators? Really?

Oh all the current calculators, I'd say the HP-35S is convenient, with a good user interface, decent keys, the batteries last for ages and it does all the stuff you'd use a calculator for rather than a computer. spend the money you save on a graphing calculator on something like http://www.alsoftiphone.com/i41CXplus/

[c4757p]

Do people ever do any serious graphing with their calculators? Really?

Personally - the last time I used the graphing feature on a calculator, I was a junior in high school. I was playing around with the new school-provided TI-84+ to see how it worked. Haven't used it since, and I spent a few years as a math major and another couple so far in engineering. This includes the fact that until I lost it in the physics lab, my baby was a brand new HP 50G with lots of graphing features including 3D. (Yeah, I'd make a bad father.)

[Psi]

you need to convert back to decimal to do any arithmetic.

You can do arithmetic in other bases but you have to say what base your entering or it assumes base10.

eg,
1000 <blue shift> <base> <8key>   (will show 1000b)
<+>
1 <blue shift> <base> <8key> (will show 1b)
<enter>
Answer you get as either 9 or 1001b depending on if you have the calc in binary or decimal mode etc..

I agree though, it's not really ideal.

[saturation]

Win7 came with a great free calculator, including a full programmer's one with hex, dec, oct, bin, and multiple word length calculations.  I ported it to run on my other boxes: Vista 64, 32.

Today, I find calculators are only good if you are working in the lab on hardware, brainstorming on paper, cross checking the computer, the spreadsheet script, or without a computer.  Once you get the numbers down, you'll end up transferring the data to your PC for further analysis, so you can't do anything elaborate otherwise you'll duplicate your work.  So I use it only for approximation.   I use the $9 solar power FX260, which I have 3 and just leave it all over my workplace and home.  I also use Real Calc on Android quite a bit, when I'm not within arm's reach of the Casios. 



For programming, as you need a computer to program, I use the Win7 calculator since whatever you calculate say in hex, can easily be ported and tested in code if its on the PC already.

[Psi]

I hate the windows 7 calculator but I can't remember why exactly. I think it had something to do with not being able to enter decimals when in programmers mode.

I always deleted the win7 calc exe and replaced it with the XP version everytime i install win7

[nctnico]

I recommend Casio calculators as well. They also keep up when typing with two fingers. The HP calculators I've come across so far can't.

I have an FX-4500P which is close to 20 years old and still going strong. My newer calculator is an FX-115MS which is about 10 years old. Both have the SI prefix symbols so calculating the RC time of a 10k resistor and a 10uf capacitor becomes 10k*10u<EXE>. It saves a lot of typing. Both calculators can do hex/dec/bin/oct.

[fpga]

You can do arithmetic in other bases but you have to say what base your entering or it assumes base10.

It would have been far better if you could set the base you are working in and have all further values entered, calculated, and displayed be in that base until you change the base setting. This is how the HP 16C works and there is not base confusion.

Apparently whoever designed the HP 35s had no experience working with other bases such as hex or binary. They figured that entering values in a base other than decimal was an exception rather than a norm. As a result, using hex or bin on the 35s is a great pain and also very error prone.

[baoshi]

Wah so many suggestions Thanks everyone.
Now I realize what I need is a basic scientific calculator without fancy graphics function.
I'm trying to get a FX-61F and if cannot, I'll look at others.
One thing I'm not fond of is those with nice backlighted color LCD one. Have you ever seen a color LCD device lasts 10+ years without degrading?

[Psi]

You can do arithmetic in other bases but you have to say what base your entering or it assumes base10.

It would have been far better if you could set the base you are working in and have all further values entered, calculated, and displayed be in that base until you change the base setting. This is how the HP 16C works and there is not base confusion.

Yeah, I totally agree.
Perhaps with an extra "base10 override" button you can press to momentary display the active value in decimal, or enter the next value as a decimal.
That way you can be in BIN/HEX/OCT mode and everything works in BIN/HEX/OCT but you can still quickly check the base10 value or enter a base10 value as part of an equasion.

[rsjsouza]

Now I realize what I need is a basic scientific calculator without fancy graphics function.

Yesterday I took a closer look at the Casio fx-115ESPlus and it really seems to be a very decent calculator. Its base conversion (Bin/Dec/Hex) is pretty straightforward and it may be a good candidate. Although it is a plain LCD screen, I consider the backlight a plus for clarity.

In my experience I have the TI89 (a gift) and the HP48GX (a replacement of my HP48SX of university years) and I can tell that, at least for base conversion, the HP is much more straightforward (unfortunately it is RPN, so to you this is a disadvantage).

[tinhead]

gosch ... there was FX-61F on ebay, and i didn't got it :\


http://www.ebay.com/itm/281123492106

[uoficowboy]

I can't imagine using any calculator other than a TI-89. The solve and calculus functions are instrumental and save me tons of time. I don't use it for graphing too frequently. I also have a TI-89 emulator on my Android phone so I am never too far from a TI-89! Mine is ~12 years old and still running strong. I have to swap batteries in it maybe once a year.

[EEVblog]

gosch ... there was FX-61F on ebay, and i didn't got it :\
http://www.ebay.com/itm/281123492106

Wow, commanding high prices now it seems.

[jvdb]

Wow, commanding high prices now it seems.

I bought an HP 42S from a classmate years ago when he upgraded to an HP 48. It's crazy what some old calculators go for on eBay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-42S-Scientific-Calculator-Excellent-Condition-with-BOX-Manual-and-Case-/141003041261?pt=Calculators&hash=item20d46fa9ed

[Bloch]

Win7 came with a great free calculator, including a full programmer's one with hex, dec, oct, bin, and multiple word length calculations.  I ported it to run on my other boxes: Vista 64, 32.

For programming, as you need a computer to program, I use the Win7 calculator since whatever you calculate say in hex, can easily be ported and tested in code if its on the PC already.

I use mostly Google. Well i use Google Chrome so i can use the address bar


256 in hex


0xff in decimal


0b11 in decimal


0b11 in hex


sqrt(50/pi)

[Psi]

You can also do math in binary or hex or a combination

eg, google..

0b10 + 0b01   (returns 0b11)

0xFF + 0x01 (returns 0x100)

10 + 5 in binary (returns 0b1111)

[AndyC_772]

I wouldn't be without my Casio FX-115MS, for one reason: it understands, displays and uses engineering notation for orders of magnitude.

There's no counting powers of 10 and having to work out what component I really need if it says an answer is 2.2E-10. Put it in ENG it'll show that same answer as 220p.

I couldn't contemplate going back to a calculator that makes me use the EXP button all the time. In electronics we work with values such as resistors in kOhms, capacitors in uF and time intervals in ns. We don't buy a 4.7E3 Ohm resistor and connect it to a 4.7E-8 Farad capacitor - so why put up with a calculator that can't understand this?

[baoshi]

gosch ... there was FX-61F on ebay, and i didn't got it :\


http://www.ebay.com/itm/281123492106

I didn't either. Too expensive. The winner may go for its collection value

[dfmischler]

If you want to try a RPN calculator I highly recommend this:

I recommend you read and understand this first.

[Hydrawerk]

Well, I don't like RPN... I have an old HP RPN calculator from early 1980's.

[Eight8]

I was upset when my FX-61F LCD started to fail.