Is RPN still relevant?

[Roberto Volpi]

RPN in the '70s was a very efficient way to use the limited hardware resources available back in the day. It was actually never relevant for the biggest market share, but a niche of professionals and geeks.

Half a century after, hardware is more powerful, advanced and far cheaper, so it is hardly needed, especially if you take into account that the cheapest RPN calculator costs more than USD 100 and you cannot exactly buy it at the neighborhood's shop.

Today, less than 1% of world population has ever heard of RPN, and those who actually use RPN calculators are mainly readers of this forum.

It is of course unfortunate that schooling system never supported the diffusion of RPN, because it is a very efficient way of computing (if you know how to do it). Nevertheless it is delusional, and also a bit conspiracist, to blame it for that; schooling system, as far as math is concerned, is meant for giving a smattering of literacy to the bulk, and a student today with less than 50 bucks can buy almost everywhere an outstanding calculator with trigs, logs, stats and all stuff like that.