HP-15c: Why so popular?

[tppytel]

(11-04-2023 11:00 AM)lvt Wrote:  I bought a TI-83 for my sister when she entered secondary school (called "lycée" in France), the calculator barely lasted those three years until she graduated.

That's actually rather surprising to me. The early TI graphing calcs were solidly built in my experience, provided you took reasonable care with the screen. The TI-85 I bought for PreCalc in 1993 still works just fine, and we still had a ton of 81/82/83's kicking around our high school when I started teaching in 2000. The fat 84's seemed OK too, but the current 84CE's seem to have gotten significantly worse. I have multiple students with ~1yo 84CE's that just died or refuse to charge, which really sucks for a ~$120 device.

As can be deduced from the dates above, the original Voyagers were well before my time. But they remain my favorite calculators for straight-up real number crunching for all the reasons others have noted. Even with a DM42 available I prefer grabbing a Voyager - better screen and keypad, and the form factor feels nicer to my hands. The downside is that programming is quite awkward on the Voyagers vs the DM42. However, I'll reach for the Prime if I need to do any significant complex or matrix calculations. I'm curious as to how many folks still professionally use a 15C for complex/matrix ops instead of more recent models.