Too many calculators?

[John Garza (3665)]

johnb (aka Mr. Colossus) brings up some excellent points:

1) If you repair/refurb your own machines, it's always useful to have 'parts machines'. Buy some cheap junked ones for this purpose. Maybe you want good cosmetics, but fried innards are OK, or maybe the reverse, depending on your needs. But I agree with johnb in that if you enjoy using them, you should have some top-notch examples for this purpose. It makes the experience all the better. Personally, I can't stand looking at an imperfect display. Like scratches or smudges. I even keep lens cleaner patches with my HP Prime so I can wipe off the fingerprints after each use.

2) I gave up long ago looking for the one perfect machine. About mid-point in the HP collector journey everyone reaches this 'quest for the holy grail' plateau. And people have different approaches to overcoming it. For me, I realize they are all different machines with different strengths/weaknesses. I try to match my average daily needs to the machine and keep only one or two 'on deck' charged and ready to go if I need one. The others are safe in storage. Every couple of months, I re-evaluate and maybe swap out a machine, even if it's just to mix things up and lend some variety.

Another approach is categorizing by machine types. For example: light general use, heavy programming, financial analysis, etc. Then keep one of each type on hand. An example mix (for me) on the above categories would be: HP-25C for light general use, DM42 for heavy programming, HP-92 for financial.


-J