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Incidentally, I still consider my HP-50G the best calculator ever made. I bought two physical units and I use the Emu50G app on my iOS devices (which sadly seem

by jwr 8y ago

Incidentally, I still consider my HP-50G the best calculator ever made. I bought two physical units and I use the Emu50G app on my iOS devices (which sadly seems to be no longer developed, I might have to pick it up one day). I think we are losing the art of calculating things quickly. There are many calculators, but they seem to be designed for either accountants or students. And no, tools like the python REPL, wolfram alpha, or siri/alexa do not replace an engineering calculator. I also find the emphasis on "graphing" bizarre: for graphing, a computer is always going to be better and more convenient. HP had a great team that designed calculators that made just the right compromises. There were some better ones (the real game-changers were HP-25, HP-35, HP-42, HP-48 and the financial HP-12) and some not-so-goot ones, but they iterated and in the process managed to produce a number of great tools. Sadly, that team is gone, and the company seems to be no longer interested in designing calculators. I guess I will hold on to my HP-50G and some day take over the maintenance of Emu50G, if I need to. I find a good engineering calculator much too useful of a tool to just abandon it just because it went out of fashion.

kryptiskt 8y ago
Have you seen the Swiss Micros calculators? https://www.swissmicros.com/index.php https://www.swissmicros.com/index.php
- jwr 8y ago
  Yes, but the HP-42 is mostly valuable for nostalgic value, later models were significantly enhanced. As an example, unit conversions (basically, convert between every unit known to man) is something I use every day. It takes about 6 keystrokes to convert from anything to pretty much anything on a HP-50G.
lvncelot 8y ago
"And no, tools like the python REPL, wolfram alpha, or siri/alexa do not replace an engineering calculator" Honest question, why is that? I left my calculator in high school and almost exclusively use wolfram alpha / the python REPL, depending on the task - but I also don't do much engineering.
- jwr 8y ago
  Because you can't use these tools on many occasions, they don't always do exactly what you want, and accessing them is slower than using a calculator. The devil is in the details. Such as being able to quickly switch to engineering notation to display values applicable in electronics. Also, I often want to do a series of calculations, for which an RPN calculator with a stack (you can see the top 7 levels) is uniquely suited.

by jwr 8y ago

kryptiskt 8y ago

Have you seen the Swiss Micros calculators? https://www.swissmicros.com/index.php https://www.swissmicros.com/index.php

jwr 8y ago
Yes, but the HP-42 is mostly valuable for nostalgic value, later models were significantly enhanced. As an example, unit conversions (basically, convert between every unit known to man) is something I use every day. It takes about 6 keystrokes to convert from anything to pretty much anything on a HP-50G.

lvncelot 8y ago

"And no, tools like the python REPL, wolfram alpha, or siri/alexa do not replace an engineering calculator" Honest question, why is that? I left my calculator in high school and almost exclusively use wolfram alpha / the python REPL, depending on the task - but I also don't do much engineering.

jwr 8y ago
Because you can't use these tools on many occasions, they don't always do exactly what you want, and accessing them is slower than using a calculator. The devil is in the details. Such as being able to quickly switch to engineering notation to display values applicable in electronics. Also, I often want to do a series of calculations, for which an RPN calculator with a stack (you can see the top 7 levels) is uniquely suited.