Introduction - new HP15C owner

[Johnh]

Hello, I’m a new member here and I think I’ve arrived, as I took delivery of my HP15C CE yesterday. So far I’m very pleased.

I’m in the last few years (and maybe a few more) of my career as a structural engineer. I teach it and I design structures. HP calculators have been there on my wish list from about as soon as I knew what a calculator could do, pretty much exactly from the HP35, which corresponded to my being at an age of 13.

All through those 50 years, the need to analyse and work the numbers has been there at school, University and on the job. But, I never owned an HP until about 6 years ago, with an HP35s.

My first calculator was a Sinclair Scientific, an amazing achievement in getting some maths functionality out of a platform designed for making a basic calculator. Fun to play with, but not accurate enough even for high-school, which started to allow calculators in place of sliderules a couple of years later. But I’m glad I had it because it taught me to appreciate RPN, and what you learn at that age is easily learnt!

The later programable calcs brought a very personal connection to the analysis, in a way that the computers of the 70’s and 80’s and into the 90’s couldn’t match because they were too rare, expensive, big and generally clunky. My friend had a HP25C, and I wanted it…

But every time, when I needed to consider a new device for myself, the HP’s were beautiful and wonderfully made, but for a given $, ‘lesser’ models from TI or Casio would always do more. I had a TI58 at University, and Casio programmable and pocket computers with lots of memory that ran BASIC; very handy in the 1980’s. And there would usually be a better one in a couple of years anyway. None of them work now!

These days that need for personal connection and programming is met generally by laptops and spreadsheets, together with proprietary software with full network backup and QA.

But I still feel the need to punch numbers, maybe ad-hoc, ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calcs to help think about something, or do a sanity check on the latest mega ETABS analysis. And that’s where the HP’s have finally become perfect for me! They feel reliable, I can see them clearly (especially the new 15C) and they are handy. A good range of functions and access to simple programming make them very useful tools for the technical leader in engineering. And the buttons work and feel right when you press them at speed, unlike those old Casios!

I’ve liked my HP35s, it’s a proper RPN HP and generally reliable in use and plenty powerful. What I don’t love about it is that every couple of years despite great care, and for various reasons, something happens to cause it to lose everything. With its substantial power and memory, its tempting to put a lot into it, but in practice its more volatile than it should be and there’s only fingers for putting it all back in.

So I think from now on, Ill just work with the simplest and most useful program routines that I have, and I'll adapt them also for the HP15C, which compared to the 35s, is that bit nicer and clearer and the buttons are even more positive.

thanks for reading!
John (NSW Australia)