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Joseph_21sv · 02-09-2016, 03:34 AM

(02-08-2016 07:27 AM)Sadsilence Wrote: I feel smartphones are not the death for sophisticated calculators outside school life. It came with PCs/laptops and matching software (Mathlab/Mathematica etc.) Theoratically sitting in an development department with around 30 scientists, engineers and technicians we should be best target for scientific/graphics/CAS calulators. But nobody in engineers' job lifes comes even close to the idea programming a calculator for difficult solutions when sitting in front of PC with multiple 20''+ displays.

Indeed on nearly all desks there is a calculator, normally back from school days. What they are used for is number crunching for +/-/squareroot/conversion tasks. No 1000+ functions but a reliable keyboard is most wanted. Just for fun I often use an HP-41 or even an HP-45 for a week. Regarding tactile feedback they are lightyears in front compared to an HP-35S or a Prime. For this reason simulations on PC/Tablet are no solution, too.

A feeling that smartphones, PCs/laptops, tablets, whatever second party is the death for advanced calculators outside of education is ignoring the unbroken run of advanced calculator faux pas by Casio, HP and TI since the end of the 1980s. This began with the cost cutting on the HP-42S which caused suspicion that HP were cowed by examination regulation boards, the faulty mechanics of the clamshell design of the HP-18C and 28C, the awkward way the HP-17B and 42S support user entry of alphabetic characters and the controversial programming model of the HP-17B, 18C and 27S, all of which dishonored advanced calculators and did much to drive scientists, engineers and technicians into far more expensive PC/laptop+CAS setups. None of these groups really wanted to do it because it meant less money they could save for their personal lives, and heaven knows, they could not all have been career people. In other words, the real death for advanced calculators was the chaos at their own place.