Calculators you regret buying?

[carey]

(12-11-2023 02:34 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  About the HP-38G...I was rather pleased: A very robust calculator perfectly suited for what it is intended for: A teaching/learning aid for schoolchildren. Very useable for this purpose and not expensive compared with other HP products of that era - affordable for everyone. An HP-48G would have cost three times as much in 1995. Easily programmable in BASIC, which is something I appreciate, and even with a pleasant colour scheme.

I agree with all these comments and will also mention the advanced matrix functions the HP-38G inherited by virtue of sharing some Saturn microcode with the HP-48G/GX. Nowhere else can one find the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) as a built-in function in a non-CAS algebraic calculator than in the HP-38G and its non-CAS descendants: HP39G, 39G+, 39GS, 39Gii. CAS descendants include the HP40G, 40GS and Prime. Also, unlike the RPL series that also included many models, but with significant changes in key arrangement and functions, the five models from HP38G through HP39GS saw little UI change, so the HP38G must have done something right, from the start.

My only calculator regret, due to its limited memory, was the HP28C. Unfortunately, my memory makes it hard to forget. :) Oh, and I almost forgot :) my other regret was the TI-66 which was so slow that it made the decade later HP-38G look like a supercomputer.