Thoughts on HP/DM/PX Calculator’s

[Johnh]

I can appreciate @knife31 's comments on the HP35S. I have one, but there's just a few too many road-blocks, with no work-arounds, for it to be what it should be. The basic features are great, with plenty of memory to hold a library of useful programs, and enough text capability to keep track of what inputs and outputs mean in seldom-used programs. But....

1. Batteries run down in a few months and you lose everything
2. Battery check doesn't warn before power gets too low to preserve data and you lose everything
3. Easy to accidentally create loops with no end, and no way to halt, and the only way out is to remove batteries and you lose everything
4. No input or output, so have to key in everything again (and agsin)
5. Checksums are inconsistent so keying in again is unreliable
6. There's a windows app which is ok (but no way to read data into it or out of it except my keying on the screen) and no Android app as a fall back.

So I realised it's just too much pain except for one off calcs and small programs, which is how I use it now, barely stretching its legs.

So I've moved to my HP15C-CE. which is a nicer unit and a simpler interface for tasks where text isn't needed. Plus there are several useful apps to complement it, and the new firmware update and save capabilities which I'm looking forward to exploring.

Decades ago, we were delighted to have access to any personal device to deal with calculations and programs. But the bar is higher now and a calculator that does more than the basics needs to address these things.

But the DM's do look appealing...