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| Author |
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| 19 new of 43 responses total. |
jp2
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response 25 of 43:
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May 17 02:39 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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jmsaul
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response 26 of 43:
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May 17 14:18 UTC 2002 |
Ah, okay.
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void
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response 27 of 43:
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May 18 23:43 UTC 2002 |
I have a Casio graphing calculator.
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janc
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response 28 of 43:
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May 19 14:12 UTC 2002 |
I don't think I have a working calculator. Mostly they just need
batteries, but I generally use "bc" on Unix or a spreadsheet if I need
to do arithmatic.
I still have my first calculator sometimes. A Texas Instruments SR-10.
Here's a picture: http://www.rskey.org/sr10.htm. Four functions plus
square root, reciprocal and square. No memory. Cost me $100 new. SR
stood for "slide rule" which is what I used before I bought that. The
SR-10 was cool because when you turned on it did not automatically
clear. The processor's program counter just started pointing to some
random spot in the ROM. Often it would come up showing some kind of
random number on the display. Sometimes it would come up counting,
showing number on the display that just continually incremented.
Rarely you would get counting combined with all sorts of digits
flashing on and off, some bright, some dim. Quite a little light show.
I bought my second calculator for about the same price. It was a Texas
Instruments SR-52. It was TI's first programmable calculator. It had
a magnetic card reader and everything. I did lots of programming on it
before it died, and I replaced it with a similar one, a TI-59. After
that I mostly shifted to computers and never paid for another
calculator. There's almost always a computer where I am. What do I
need a calculator for?
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rcurl
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response 29 of 43:
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May 19 19:03 UTC 2002 |
My first programmable calculator was the card-reading HP-65, bought for me
by a consulting client. I also used it as my everyday punchable
calculator. The calculations on which were based a patent issued to my
client and me were done on this. My second programmable was the
cassette-reading Casio FX-700P, on which a student and I did the
calculations for a paper that was published (before we all had desktops).
My most used calculator for a long time was the Casio fx-8100 which, while
not programmable, had two timers (stopwatches), all the higher math
functions through hyperbolics, manipulations of fractions, polar-cartesian
conversion, etc. Now I use two Annapolis "Scientific Calculator" (no
model number) which also has all those scientific functions - and costs
$7. One lives on the kitchen table and the other in a field laboratory
kit. Finally I picked up a Casio FX-270W-PLUS, which in addition to all
the scientific functions does linear and quadratic regression. I don't use
this one much as the Annapolis is more convenient for ordinary
calculations and Excel is better for regression (and plotting and printing
such). Oh - and then there is a "business card" calculator that is always
in my pocket, mostly to use when shopping.
So, unlike Jan, how could I live without calculators?
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drew
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response 30 of 43:
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May 19 22:49 UTC 2002 |
I had the TI58C (Continuous memory) on which the battery pack died. It's still
around somewhere and still works on the AC adaptor but no longer retains its
contents.
Thereafter I switched to HP calculqators. I still keep and use the HP28S (32K
of memory) as it has built-in unit conversions and also does derivatives and
Taylor-series integrals. Though backwards-polish in nature, it's possible to
do math on it "forwards" by typing in an expression in single quotes, eg
'(2+3)*3.5/PI' and hit the ->NUM key to get a number.
Most of the calculator work nowadays I do either on the PC, or else on my
HP100LX, as it's also a PC (80186) and has built-in Lotus 123 as well as a
solver. If I replace it, it will likely be with a Compaq (now bought by HP)
WinCE Pocket PC as those will also do Linux and dual-booting.
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gull
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response 31 of 43:
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May 20 01:46 UTC 2002 |
I'm so used to RPN notation from working with my HP-48GX that I replaced the
calculator app on my Palm with an RPN calculator. It's a pretty good one,
too -- the Palm's display lets it have some nice features, like the ability
to swap any number in the stack with the one at the bottom of the stack by
tapping it with the stylus. For heavy-duty number entry there's still
nothing like a real, physical keypad, though.
Really old calculators fascinate me, mostly because of the clever things
they did with the technology they had available at the time. For example,
the Friden SRW, a mechanical calculating machine that could compute square
roots:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/srw.htm
Or this early electronic calculator, which used an acoustic delay line as a
memory device to avoid having to use expensive core memory:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/ec132.htm
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gelinas
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response 32 of 43:
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May 20 02:35 UTC 2002 |
I just recently threw away my SR-10; must have been '98, when we moved here.
I'd always thought that counting behaviour was an indication that the machine
was failing; I'm glad to know that I was wrong. (It always worked, though.)
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jaklumen
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response 33 of 43:
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May 20 10:31 UTC 2002 |
whoa, I think my folks still have an SR-10 or a similar model.
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tpryan
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response 34 of 43:
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May 20 20:54 UTC 2002 |
One calculator on the dinning room table, one on the bill paying
table, another in the breifbag. One should be in an office desk.
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tsty
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response 35 of 43:
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May 21 12:04 UTC 2002 |
if you are going to do trig as the first use of yu r new
calculator, consider the sharp line (if it still exists)
as i remember it, the sharp calculators, graphing calculators, did
lots of neat stuff for you .
the ti line is aceptably good.
if you wnat sometin g for the long haul, go the hp route and rpn.
as stated arelier, the learning curve is a bit longer, but
the results are more than just well worth it.
oh, i started with a slide rule in 6th grade - and almost got kicked
out for cheating! - but i don;t remember what he brand was.
then directly to a triple-log post (gorgeous!!!) in 11th grade (graduation
present from 10th grade) which i used through 2nd yr of engineeering.
changed fields and came back to calculating with an hp21 and then
on to an hp41c with all the bells ans whistles.
sone little shit n de4troit stole it years later - damn.
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utv
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response 36 of 43:
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May 21 14:48 UTC 2002 |
i bought one of the earlier HP calculators, and now i'm so used to RPN
that i can hardly use anything else.
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gelinas
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response 37 of 43:
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May 22 04:42 UTC 2002 |
I use xcalc because I got used to ten-key. I also use the calculator on my
Palm m505, again by hand. And, lately, dc, which is a post-fix calculator.
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lynne
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response 38 of 43:
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May 29 00:26 UTC 2002 |
I still have the TI 85 my parents bought me in high school. I love it, even
though I accidentally deleted the brick*out game program. I thought it'd
gotten stolen a year ago, and got really upset because they don't make them
anymore.
Prior to that I had an HP non-graphing calculator. I had fun figuring out
how to program it for a couple of weeks, then it was just sort of a nuisance.
I hated having to use RPN for everything.
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eprom
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response 39 of 43:
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Jun 2 01:31 UTC 2002 |
I bought a TI-89 a few days ago.....it's confusing.
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eprom
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response 40 of 43:
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Jun 21 23:30 UTC 2002 |
hmmm.....ok.
I'm 2/3 finished with this Pre-Calc class...so I've had a little
bit of time to familiarize myself with this calculator.
however, I figure there must be some software program for windows
that should do all the things that the TI-89 does....it's really
had to read the screen some times.
I did a google search on the web and found a few math graphic
software programs:
Mathematica ($140), Maple 8 ($130), MATLAB ($98), MathCAD ($115)
These prices of course are for the student versions....
Have any of you smarties here used any of the programs I mentioned
above?
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jp2
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response 41 of 43:
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Jun 22 03:38 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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aruba
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response 42 of 43:
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Jun 22 04:38 UTC 2002 |
I've used Matlab and Mathematica, and Maple a teeny bit. Matlab is good for
matrices (Matlab is short for "matrix laboratory"). But it's kind of a toy
programming language. Mathematica and Maple are more hardcore, and you can
find packages for them that do a lot of advanced math stuff.
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jp2
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response 43 of 43:
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Jun 22 04:39 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
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