My personal calculator history

[AnnoyedOne]

(10-31-2024 08:39 PM)dm319 Wrote:  I never saw a single HP calculator at my school.

As I recall there was only one person in school with a HP. Scientific but I don't recall the model. Perhaps a HP-31E or HP-32E. Maybe the latter since I think the owner bragged about it being programmable. Whatever the case it didn't interest me much.

I only had TI's because I could afford them. I didn't love AOS or hate RPN. In fact I don't think I even knew of RPN until I bought a HP-15C. It was never an issue for me either way.

Also, I forgot about the TI Programmer (essentially the same as as TI-30) I had for a time. As I recall it suffered the same fate as my TI-30 (constant key bouncing). The HP-16C is much better.

My uncle taught civil engineering and I once saw a HP on his desk. Probably a HP-25 since he too was a "cheap bastard" and likely wouldn't have forked out extra for a 25C or 29C.

My dad brought a basic 4-function home from work with him each day. A TI Datamath clone I think. I used it a few times to check my school arithmetic homework. In those days one had to write out solutions in longhand so a calculator was only useful to verify your results. I disassembled it a few times and it had TI chips inside (hence a Datamath clone).

I was given a small sliderule in my youth but never used it much.

A1