Calculators with base conversions but no bitwise logic

[ijabbott]

Back in 1990 or so, my lovely "wallet style" Casio fx-450 (which along with the slightly updated fx-451 was a favourite amongst computer programmers at the time) was starting to come apart at the hinge (but only the vinyl covering on the inside). I went to the local WHSmith (a chain of high street newsagents in the UK) looking for something a bit more sturdy and noticed the Casio fx-3800P which seemed to fit the bill as it had a BASE-n mode, and as a bonus was programmable (although my beloved FX-502P that I bought myself for high school was still working at the time). Only after I bought it did I discover the lack of support for bitwise logical operations. I couldn't believe that Casio would go to the trouble of adding BASE-n calculations, but miss out such basic operations as AND, OR, XOR and NOT that my fx-450 had.

Recently, I was looking at TAS and noticed an auction for a HP-27S in good condition. It also has base conversions, and it looked like a nice calculator, so I found a scan of the users manual online and began to read it. Lo and behold, it is also missing the bitwise logical operations. What were HP thinking?

So here is a likely incomplete hall of shame for calculators that have programmer-friendly base conversions, but spoil it by omitting the bitwise logical operations:

• Casio fx-3800P
• HP-20S
• HP-22S
• HP-27S
• HP-32S
• HP-32SII
• Sharp EL-512