vintage calc for school work

[Ron Ross]

First, I commend you for returning to school. Good luck with that.

Since you did not mention or imply that you had an existing Hp and I suspect you never had an Hp before, you might not be aware that nearly all of the older Hp calculators use RPN. While you may love it after you learn it, you may not. And you added the caveat that you want your calculator to be in the $20-50 range. Well….that restricts your options quite a bit, unless you get extremely lucky. You won’t likely find an LED Hp calculator in THAT price range (unlike Ti or Casio, which can be found in that price range, fairly easily). And LED calculators are battery hogs by todays’ standards anyway.

The first calculator I would suggest is an Hp 20s. It is a nice algebraic calculator with a nice function set and you should be able to find one in your price range. If you get lucky, you might find a higher end calculator such as an Hp 22s or and Hp 27s, both nice upgrades, but the Hp 20s is the most common and a better calculator than nearly anything available today. If you get lucky or wish to reach out for the best, the Hp 27s is still the Queen of all pocket calculators, period. There is not a superior algebraic pocket calculator available, even today! (I am excluding the recently discontinued Casio 9860G slim)

If you want to buy an older RPN model (to be technical, RPL but to a new user, RPN), I suggest an Hp 48G (although you could buy an Hp 50G for less than $100 NEW or an Hp Prime ($130), and these two HPs both offer RPN & Algebraic modes, something you should consider, especially if you have not used RPN). The Hp 48G is a low end graphing calculator (by today’s standard). And truth be told, it is a pathetic graphing calculator, always was, because it is slow at generating graphs. However, it is an excellent all-around number cruncher. It is far simpler to configure and use than an Hp 50G for general number crunching. A fan favorite, so to speak. Many here would suggest getting better i.e. a 48G+ or 48GX, but your upper limit of $50 will preclude that.

You may also consider an Hp 35s. While it is new (and therefore easy to acquire), it is about $50 and looks and feels very similar to the older models. (An Hp 20s is far better quality wise, but the Hp 35s DOES have 32K or RAM, the Hp 20s – 100 steps ie 0.2K to store a max of 6 small programs).

I hate to advertise for any vendors on this site aside from Eric Rechlin (hpcalc.org) with whom I can heartily endorse. But Eric probably cannot help you on your quest for an older unit. That leaves Samson Cables. Samson Cables does sell vintage calculators and I believe still sells the Hp 20s. Their prices are going to be similar to ebay auctions, but they provide a 90 day warranty (which they will stand behind) which is far better than an ebay purchase of a non-working calculator.

If you are just interested in a capable vintage calculator and you DON’T insist upon Hp quality and feel, you can look at a Ti-68 (very similar to an Hp 20s) or an even more capable Ti-66 (Horizontal layout, but really an LCD version of a Ti-58c w/o ROM card/chips, somewhat on par to an Hp 15c). You could also buy an LED Ti-58c for $20-50, but LED calculators tend to have bad rechargeable cells and Ti’s are notorious for bad keyboards, so I would still suggest an LCD model.

Last on my list would be a Casio fx 4000 as it is also a capable calculator, but it really doesn’t look or feel vintage. I guess Casio’s just don’t age…(8^0