Introduction - new HP15C owner

[Johnh]

Thanks for the warm welcomes and interesting comments!

That Sinclair Scientific that I first had was the non-programmable version. Definitely an interesting point in history, but hopefully not one that got used for much mission-critical engineering. I remember it took about 15 seconds to work out a Sine function, to an accuracy that was about the same as I could guess.

With the HP's, it's fascinating to find out that these devices are not frozen in time, but get hacked, adapted, emulated and reimagined to bring them into the present. I have a nice collection of Android versions. Touch 15i seems like the best HP15c app, and Free42, (with a smoother skin) is great too. For a basic algebraic calc app, I like Panecal Plus and it's worth a few $ for the paid version.

i have one more actual HP. It came free the other day with the HP15c CE and it's an HP39gII. Old new stock, with old batteries but that's no problem. I'm not sure what to make of this yet, it seems like a good high-school quality, with graphics and USB. But it's complicated looking, a big clunky thing with really small fonts. Helpfully, it came with a printed manual, in Chinese!, and more manuals, on CD!. No doubt I can download one though. I don't think it'll get much use from me, but is it worth investigating further to understand it?