General > General Technical Chat
What's the current go-to calculator for electrical engineers?
BreakingOhmsLaw:
Well, this thread blew up unexpectedly. Thanks to every contributor for their input. I have bought an HP Prime now and so far I'm very happy with it. Still learning to drive it, but it is really nice.
I've meddled with RPN a bit, but really can't understand the often quoted advantage that it is less buttons pushes. Having to push the space button to separate operator eats up this advantage, at least for simple operations, which make up the majority of day-to-day use.
Of course on more complex operations, I can see that it has its charms.
That said, with the possibilities of the HP Prime, you would probably be even more productive just creating a program for the job.
Going to order an 991 as well, just to have a backup in the drawer.
Berni:
The RPN thing is mostly because old calculators often used it and people got used to it, especially the financial calculators, then HP used it on a lot of calculators too and they got pretty popular too. People get used to it and just prefer it.
Similar to the new dual row scientific calculators with cursors. People who are used to the classic ones usually don't like them. However i am young enough that the new dual row ones ware already around back when i was in school, so i much prefer the new ones. I don't have the mental muscle memory to think about order of operations when keying stuff into a calculator, since these modern calculators do that on there own. I also make lots of use of the cursor where i go back and try modifying a value and quickly get the result recalculated, or go back up the history list and grab something i already typed in previously to save me the time. This is why i love SpeedCrunch on the PC, it works in a similar way. In my opinion this is how things should work since we are no longer bound by limitations of 80s consumer LCD display technology.
So the ideal calculator is really a lot about personal taste.
bson:
It's not about pressing fewer buttons, it's about ease of chaining calculations. Especially calculations involving multiple results. Even your typical algebraic calculator isn't strictly algebraic, for example you press 45 SIN to calculate a sine. Because if you have a result from a previous calculation, like 45, and want the sine of that it's cumbersome to turn it into SINE(45). Many algebraic systems, like Mathematica, have a history and can refer to previous values, so you might say Sin[%14] to accomplish the same. In effect, the stack is exactly a "history" of calculations, or a notepad you can operate on. Something like Mathematica, while superior, would be very difficult to use meaningfully in a calculator form factor.
TimFox:
I like my Swiss Micros (link posted above in my earlier response) DM41X that uses RPN and displays the four-line stack.
kripton2035:
because of this thread, I bought a used hp prime and I really begin to like it.
what I like most is the big tactile screen, you can tap on a result, scroll up/down, copy and the selected formula is at the input again.
very nice and speedy.
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