Most common calculators in the forum?

[Marcelo Vanti]

Hello,
I'm not a real collector. But in college, here in Brazil, the hp 41c was a real dream unattainable to me, due to the high cost at the time. So in my graduation time I bought my first HP, a 48gx. Then I got infected with the disease. After much searching, I was able to finally buy a used 41c, 20 years after I dreamed of it. After this, they came in order of acquisition (approx.):
  hp 49g
 hp 49G + (not working)
  hp 50g
hp 35s
  hp 34c
  hp 35
  hp 45
  hp 67
  hp 65
  hp 97
hp 25c
hp 29c
  hp 15c
  hp 16c
  hp 42s
  hp 71B
  hp 41cx
  hp15cle
  hp prime.
wp34s
 Today I always have a prime and a 50g on my desk. But I love to play with them all

[John Keith]

Hmmm, you seem like a real collector to me!

[Marcelo Vanti]

Well, with each new purchase, I argued with my wife that no, I wasn't collecting ... :-)

[edryer]

HP-50G
Use for math currently working through a Coursera course on Linear Algebra and Gilbert Strang book, heavily customized it, superb platform. Nothing comes close. Makes Linear Algebra enjoyable.

Casio FX-85WA
Use for basic Algebra and Trig... my daily plugger to save wear and tear on the 50G, I am quite fond of it. Only use for very basic stuff a lot of what could be done by hand but a lot more slowly.

[wyatt8740]

(11-17-2018 02:58 AM)Jlouis Wrote:  I agree with you, the 28c/s have a very elegant and usefull form factor. I really enjoy them. When I use them in a public place, many people look at them and some start a conversation about them.

I've not had that happen with my 28 quite yet - I've had some conversations that came around to it eventually, but never had someone stop to ask me about it. Probably a matter of time, but people are pretty reserved and introverted in Indiana, it feels like.
I have had two or three ask me when I use my ThinkPad with a dock, though (it's pretty fat and well-equipped port-wise for a somewhat modern laptop), so I know those people must be out there.

(11-17-2018 02:58 AM)Jlouis Wrote:  As for the TI 89 titaneum, you are correct in not counting it in your collection. I have one that is very useful as a paper weight or a door stop.

Haha, I actually like mine for a few things. Symbolic math is much more fleshed-out and natural on it than a 28/48/49/50 or most Lisps, for instance. And it is better at integration than an RPL calc. But it's hurt by the incredibly vulnerable screen, which got a dark patch on it from rubbing against a pencil eraser in my backpack, and by not using RPN for everything else, and by using a weird sort-of-BASIC-but-not-really for a programming language, which makes little sense and which is hard if not impossible to return values from to the home screen for further computation. Add that to its high price and it's CPU being slower and less well equipped than the one in my Mac Plus or Amiga 500, and it's pretty sad. I got both of those (the Amiga with a HDD and a huge box of floppies) combined for less than an 89 tends to cost online. But I got pretty lucky; found mine for $35 at a bookstore that apparently didn't know better.

The catalog on the 28 makes programming pretty easy; even if I don't have the manual on hand to reference, I can often figure out what function I should be using and how I should call it. It's the single biggest drawback I've yet found on the 48SX— there doesn't appear to be a catalog at all. The next biggest drawback of the 48 (albeit one mostly solvable with custom menus) is the lack of a "ROLL" button. Then there's the terrible screen of the 48S, the somewhat better screen of the 48G (which still looks worse than the 28 from a normal angle), and the terrible button layout and feel of the 49G and the difficulty of swapping screens from a 49G into a 48 and keeping it looking decent.

On the other hand, there isn't an emulator for the HP-28 made for Unix, but there's X48 for the 48's. Emu42 mostly works in wine, but after a while the emulated calculator appears to freeze and won't resume working until I close and re-open the program. Also, there's the ever-present I/O problem on the 28 and its extreme difficulty to repair.

(11-17-2018 12:09 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  And, I hardly dare say that on this forum, if I had to go back to university now I personally would take a Ti89 or Voyage200 rather than any calculator made by HP after 1980.

As a current university student, there are lots of classes which won't let me use an 89 (or sometimes even an 84) that have no problem with me using my HP-28S on tests. I'm not sure if it's just the relative obscurity nowadays, or the screen's aspect ratio, or both, but people tend to assume it's not very capable despite it being able to symbolically differentiate equations.
Until I told my calc teacher that my calculator could technically draw graphs (at about the same speed as a tortoise climbing up a downward escalator), she was going to let me use it on my final, even. I probably could have gotten away with it scot-free, if I'd wanted to ("Look, it says "scientific calculator" right there on the top... You said we were only allowed to use a scientific calculator for our final..." – Graphing not really being the main selling point of a 28 back when graphing calculators were in their infancy anyway and HP calculators were aimed at scientists and engineers).

Also, I'm pretty sure a lot of academia has somehow gotten the idea that calculators that do symbolic math are necessarily "graphing calculators" with massive, tall screens. I probably have the ubiquity of the TI-83/84 lines to thank for that. Those are such a joke that even the new ones with color screens and 48mhz eZ80s and eight times more RAM can't do symbolic math at even close to the level of a 27-28 year old HP model that costs far less used.

Plus, the 28 is what got me to fall down the Lisp rabbit hole, so I have it to thank for that, too. All the TI ever did was make me hate BASIC (which the VIC-20, my first programming experience, had already done).

[freelanzr]

I consider myself new to the hobby of collecting calculators:

I have the following (so far).

SwissMicros:
DM15CC
DM42

HP:
12C
15C
16C
32S
32SII
42S
28S
48SX
48G
50G
Prime (x2)
35S (x2)
30B
10BII+

Texas Instruments:
TI-89 Ti
TI-nspire CX CAS
TI-BAIIPlus Pro
TI-36X Pro

Casio:
fx-7000G
fx-260 Solar
fx-115ES Plus
fx-5800P
fx-991EX
fx-CG50


Sharp:
EL-506D
EL-516X

Canon:
F-792SGA

[fred_76]

I just have a HP 35s

[iluvcars3man]

I have a 39gii, a fx-83gt, a broken fx-85gt (basically a 83gt but with a solar panel) and a broken fx-991ex

im not really into collecting calculators though so yeah thats why i dont have loads of calculators

[jebem]

This is one of the most enjoyable threads i have been following in the past two years.

Some very interesting discussions, but only a few answers were correctly targeted at this thread title.
Therefore I believe the title should change to something more appropriate to the majority's replies, like "What and how many calculators do you own and why".

Please understand that this is not a criticism, just an observation of how the replies changed the original title focus.

As i said in one of my initial posts here, my calculator listing is too large and meaningless to be publushed here. Inventory listings can be interesting but that was not what was being asked in the title.

That said, my currently common used calculator as a member of this forum is the HP Prime.
Great software system, lots of useful features for pupils, students and engineers, and well built for a machine designed and manufactured in the 2010 decade.
Is it perfect? Well, no.
Show me a single piece of human made machinery that sports such attribute.

[grsbanks]

You raise a good point and I'm one of the guilty parties that provided a list of machines owned.

Trouble is, the machines I have in regular use change over time. Right now I have an HP-35, a DM41 and a Casio fx-6000G on my desk. I also have an HP-41CX, HP-48GX, HP 50g, DM10L and DM42 within easy reach.

I currently own 166 calculators and 19 accessories/modules for HP calculators. Why? Because I collect the things and enjoy the fact that they all work from the 2018 HP Prime G2 back to the 1972 HP-35.

[Sylvain Cote]

I am a heavy HP-IL/HP-IB user, so:
1) the calculator that I use the most, is by far an HP-41 (mostly CL but also C/CV/CX with the HP-IL module).
2) the second calculator that I use the most is an HP-16C/DM16L.
3) the third and fourth ones are technically handheld computers : HP-71B (with FRAMB+HP-IL) and HP-75C/D (with IOROM+MATH).
Sylvain

[EdS2]

It certainly is fun to have a place to share!

I took the liberty of trimming and sorting Pier's list-so-far, collated up to post #319 (late January 2019), so I could see what's most common. And it turns out that the leaders are so far ahead it's easy enough to call the results of the top five at least.

(11-29-2017 12:12 PM)pier4r Wrote:  So I'd like to start a poll to see, according to the responding audience in this period, which calculators are common in the forum.

No applications, emulators, and what not, real working calculators only.

Legend: rank. quantity x model

Hp

1. 143 x 48G/GX/S/SX/G+
2. 130 x 41 C/CX/CV
3. 89 x 50g
4. 86 x 12C/12C Platinum/12C 30th AE
5. 69 x 15C / C+ / LE
6. 51 x 17B/ 17BII/17BII+
7. 46 x 35S
8. 46 x 71B
9. 45 x Prime
10. 42 x 32S/S II
11. 33 x 42S
12. 29 x 10 B/10BII/10BII+
13. 28 x 75/75C/75D
14. 24 x 28S
15. 24 x 25A/25C/25C/E
    

(I did this by hand, so I could have made a mistake.)

[pier4r]

Yeah I fell behind here. Fortunately the data is public !

Thanks for the overview!

[Androsynth]

My main 'collecting' hobby is retro video games and PCs (mainly Atari and Commodore), so I am not really out to collect these per say, but I am very interested in the programmable models of calculator and basic computers. I currently own TI-92+, Voyage 200, Casio fx750/Classpad 330/Prizm, HP 50g/35s/Prime, and I have a DM42 inbound. Used to have a TI-74 as well, but it died. Also a bunch of basic computers, the g850 being my favorite.

In terms of what I use, the 50g wins by a mile. It's complicated to learn, but really powerful. More like a math-focused pocket computer with it's own quirky OS than a calculator. You could spend years learning all it's features. The Prime is probably second. I find it makes anything graphing or programming related a cinch.

After those too, I probably use the Classpad the most. While it's less practical, it makes playing with math a lot of fun. It's a better *discovery* device than the HPs, though nowhere near as good of a practical machine.

All that said, I'm pretty sure the DM42 is going to eclipse the rest. RPL is kind of a pain to learn, and RPN makes a lot more sense to me. I've already written a few programs on Free42 and find it really intuitive.

[jlind]

The current stable (one each):

HP:
50g
Prime G2 (Rev D)

SwissMicros:
DM42

TI:
Programmer (1977)
30-III (Slimline series; purch. 1984)
30X Pro MathPrint (2018 model)
36X Solar (purch. 1995; rubber keypad and Anylite solar cells; pre-1996)
58
85
86
Voyage 200
89 Titanium
Nspire CX II CAS

Other:
Magic-Brain (circa 1960)
Unisonic 796B (1975)
Sharp EL-506A (1985)

Analog:
Pickett N4-ES 10" (purch. 1970)
Pickett N600 6" (purch. 1970)

Not a collector, just an accumulator that bought what I felt could best do what I wanted to at the time. Some were for small size such as the Sharp, TI Slimline, and 36X Solar. Others were for specific features (TI-85, 86 and Voyage 200). Most recent acquisitions have been to ramp up on current technology for programming and putting together some informal teaching materials on how to use them.

John

[rprosperi]

(08-26-2019 10:33 PM)jlind Wrote:  Other:
Magic-Brain (circa 1960)

Do tell and do show, please. Perhaps one of the mechanical slider type adding machines?

[jlind]

(08-26-2019 11:42 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(08-26-2019 10:33 PM)jlind Wrote:  Other:
Magic-Brain (circa 1960)

Do tell and do show, please. Perhaps one of the mechanical slider type adding machines?

You made excellent guess :-D
Photo of one in a museum . . . mine is in better condition without the scratches. It's similar to a glorified abacus in how it operates. One carries a digit over to the next column (or takes one away in subtraction) by hooking into the next column's slider at the top or bottom. Whether you move up or down in the current column depends on (a) adding or subtracting, and (b) whether or not it's going to add a digit or subtract one from the next column. If adding "4" to the value shown in the photo (disregarding the decimal point), you would slide that column upward as there's not enough increments left for all "4", and then at the top, move to the left and increment the next column by one. That resets the current column to zero and since the next column cannot move, you have to manually carry the one over, which sets that column to zero and increments the next one when you hook around at the top. You can tell whether to move up or down by the color next to the digit you're adding or subtracting. Takes a bit of practice. The wire "handle" at the top, clears the machine by resetting all the columns to zero. Black numbers on sliver are for addition (or multiplication) and silver numbers on black are for subtraction. If you mentally follow an operation slowly you can see how it works. Moving a slider down increases the number shown. Moving it up decreases it. If white is showing on the slider next to the number you're adding or subtracting, you move up. If red is showing, you move down.



John

[bshoring]

Guess I'm a little late for the party, but here's my list, in order of preference and usage:

HP-38C
HP-80
HP-35 (4th version)
HP-37E
HP-22

I keep one of these out for use at all times but rotate them so I use them all. I also have two inactive ones:
HP-41 CV
HP-71 B

I've owned 3 HP-38C's. One I wore out, another I gave as a gift and the other I am currently using. While its successor, the HP-12C is overall a superior product, I prefer the vertical format and the red LED.

[NoEqualsButton]

Very late getting here. But, in order or how often I use them, my calculators are:

DM 42
HP 33C
HP 41CV

HP 65
HP 25

HP 15C
HP 11C
HP 16C
HP 12C
HP 32S
HP 46

For pure "does everything" functionality the DM 42 is hard to beat. The 33C feels great in the hand, very rigid due to the metal keyboard and has a slightly larger display than other LED models. Continous memory helps too. The only downside of the DM 42 is in winter it just feels so cold when you first pick it up. I never really bonded with the Voyager series. Dunno why really, probably a combination of landscape orientation and LCD display.

Edit: dropped the 32S because it just shits me. I can't put my finger on it, it's just crap.

[NoEqualsButton]

(09-01-2019 05:23 PM)bshoring Wrote:  ...
I've owned 3 HP-38C's. One I wore out, another I gave as a gift and the other I am currently using. While its successor, the HP-12C is overall a superior product, I prefer the vertical format and the red LED.

I'm with you there! Portrait orientation, red LED display and /,X,-,+ on the left-hand side of the keyboard where nature intended them to be.