Calculator that can store formulas

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: bigmike
In upper math, you don't use a calculator or numbers for that matter.


It depends. When getting to complex math, doing a whole bunch of imaginary number arithmetic by hand in a test put you in a huge disadvantage (careless mistakes, wasted time, etc).

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: bigmike
So what you're saying here is college students are poor and chose the cheap route?


TI is smart to market itself to text book publisher and hand out loaner units to schools, and in the end they become standard.

 

[bigmike]

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
Originally Posted By: bigmike
In upper math, you don't use a calculator or numbers for that matter.


It depends. When getting to complex math, doing a whole bunch of imaginary number arithmetic by hand in a test put you in a huge disadvantage (careless mistakes, wasted time, etc).


I didn't use numbers after linear algebra, which was a junior level class. We wrote books (also known as theorems) from there on out. A test may have taken 40 pages in advanced calculus, which, of course, had to be take home exams due to the length of time it took to solve one problem.

 

[edhackett]

Stay away from the HP 33. It appears to be universally hated by those used to "real" HPs.

I'm going to order a 35s for work and one for myself. It looks to be as close to the older classics as we are likely to see. It has a basic set of conversions and moves a couple of functions to keys that I have do dig for on my 41C.

Ed

 

[benjamming]

Wow, y'all have some good memories. I can't remember if I ever used numbers in DE or Fourier Analysis but I bet that we didn't.

 

[HPatrick]

Hello,

I recently purchased an HP 35S and am happy with it. I have used an HP 48 series calculator since the early 90's.

I'm a civil engineer and only know two other C.E.'s or old school surveyors who don't use HP's for hand calculations. The two who don't seem to have brains that are wired differently than most other human beings, so who knows.

You can store formulas in it and use the solve feature. It seems to work well. It's much lighter than my 48, but does the RPN thing (you can set it to use non-RPN if you're a wanker, maybe we are the wankers for using RPN, I don't know). The positive action on the keys is almost as good as the old HP's. This is one of the most undervalued virtues of HP's. I rarely have entry errors simply because I know from feel that what I entered actually registered, unlike any TI or Casio I've personally used. This is very important in "hood of the truck while the contractor/technician is staring at you with the 'what do we do now' look / make it G.D. work)field engineering type work I do for my state's DOT.

I feel it's worth the $45 I paid for it.

Best regards,

Patrick

 

[crinkles]

Originally Posted By: youdontwannaknow
Looks like 'HP Solve' is exactly what I am looking for. and its even available in their non-graphing calcs like the HP 33 and 35.
It can store up to 10 equations and the graphing calcs can also plot a curve for all the results of that equation!

I wonder if there is a similar feature on the Casio and TI calcs, and what exactly do they refer to it as.

I wont be taking it to any exam, this is just for personal use.

btw, built in metric conversions would be great!


my HP48 does it all... including unit conversions.

 

[brianl703]

Originally Posted By: youdontwannaknow

I wonder if there is a similar feature on the Casio and TI calcs, and what exactly do they refer to it as.


The TI calcs have programs. You write a program (it's very similar to BASIC as I recall) and you can give it a name and store it. The program can plot the results, take user input and assign it to variables, display the contents of variables on the screen. I don't think there was any limit to the number of programs you could have other than memory. A really large complex program could use all of the non-volatile memory, not leaving room for any others. I never ran into that problem. The non-volatile memory is backed up with a 3V lithium battery, by the way.