RPN83P: RPN calculator for TI-83+ TI-84+ inspired by HP-42S

[bxparks]

(11-22-2023 05:43 AM)Gerald H Wrote:  My own preference is the 83+SE - awfully elegant. The 84+SE is merely greyish & looks much bulkier although it in fact weighs less.

That's true, the 83+SE is a better looking than the 84+SE. I prefer the perfectly straight, no-nonsense grid layout of its keys, versus the new-age-weird-artsy-curvy key layout of the 84+SE. And you are right, it is slightly smaller as well, which I hadn't notice before, probably because they are both pretty large compared to my HP calculators.

The problem I had with the 83+SE is that it uses a translucent, whitish plastic. From the photos on eBay, the contrast between the light Yellow (2ND) and light Green (ALPHA) key labels and the translucent plastic seemed terrible. As my eyes have grown older, I cannot read such small letters with such low contrast.

It turns out that TI created another hardware version of the 83+SE, which in their infinite wisdom, is called the exactly the same thing, the "83 Plus Silver Edition" (so I have no idea what it is actually called). This variant has a black plastic background, and I find the key labels to be far more readable. This variant is targeted towards teachers. It has an extra video port on the back to allow the the calculator screen to be projected with a special video projector. The problem with this model, as I discovered after my purchase, is that the humpback video port makes the calculator feel bulky.

The 84+/84+SE does have a few advantages over the 83+/83+SE though. One of them is that the 84+/84+SE has a USB-mini-B port in addition to the traditional 2.5mm serial port. So in theory, you don't need to buy that proprietary USB-to-serial cable from TI.