Calculators you regret buying?

[Wes Loewer]

I cut my teeth on the 41CX and loved programming it, but when the 28C came out I immediately saw the advantages of such a "next generation" calculator. When my 28C eventually died my move to the 49g+/50g was a natural progression.

I honestly don't understand the criticism of RPL's readability. Yes, it's harder to read than a typical programming language intended for a computer, but for a calculator language it wasn't so bad for its time. Surely RPL is not as hard to read as RPN keystroke programming. Coming from RPN, I do remember feeling like it was "cheating" to use RPL's high level features like local variables, IF-THEN-ELSE, and FOR loops. I found RPL to be incredibly efficient.

With RPL, you could do the stack juggling if you wanted to, or you could use local variables instead for a more readable program. With RPN, you have no choice but to do stack juggling and use global registers, but it's like an elegant dance when you do it right.

People criticize stack juggling, but the experience I gained learning to juggle a stack later proved to be invaluable when I got involved in fractal projects requiring floating point assembly code for the 80x87 with its 8 level RPN-style register stack.

I still love RPL, but these days I find myself coding a lot in PPL for the Prime. (The calculator has its quirks, but my students strongly prefer it over the others.) PPL is easier to read but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for RPL for quick and dirty programs.


And for the record, I have never regretted buying a calculator. I haven't had that many, but each one was like opening a door into Oz.