Introduction and Thankyou

[Zac Bruce]

Hi all,

I've been lurking around this site for quite some time and thought it was about time to sign up, not because I have anything particularly to add to the discussions but more to say thank you to everyone for the discussions had here, and the wealth of knowledge about HP calculators.

I'm currently enrolled in as an undergrad in accounting, and I stumbled upon HP calculators almost completely by chance. When looking for a calculator that would suit for my finance subjects the 12c often came up in discussions. The idea of RPN interested me, and so off to ebay I went. Now I've absolutely fallen in love with RPN and the 12c, and own a couple. Also I bought a HP Prime, which I don't really need but I was using it to check my answers during a statistics course I was taking (during breaks at work, no computers). It's a beautiful calculator but well beyond anything I need. Now I've really caught the bug- I just bid a whole dollar on a slightly damage 19Bii that I look likely to win, and I'm already thinking about trying to collect all the business/financial models, or at least the RPN ones.

I've also developed a general interest in the history and development of HP calculators, and have become determined to learn all the capabilities of RPN and the 12c in particular. Surprisingly the 12c is allowed in our exams, and I believe is the only programmable calculator to be allowed (the 10c also, but good luck to anyone trying to buy one here I suppose). I'm submitting an application to the university to have other RPN HP calculators added to the list.

You would think that being enrolled in accounting that I would have found some kind of kindred spirit in my love for calculators and RPN, but alas, nobody seems to care much at all. Today I was reading about calculating mark ups from required margins, nice simple stuff and was having much too much fun playing around with the calculator. The fact that I actively think about what is happening in various calculations and how the stack is operating etc. means that the information is sticking much more than if I just had to memorize how to do the calculations.

Anyway, enough from me. I'll probably just go back to lurking. No doubt as I get further through my degree I'm going to think of ways to write programs that will help with calculations in exams and so I'll come back and share anything I come up with. I think most of it would have already been done by someone else at this point though!


Kind regards,

Zac