HP 50G Arrived Today

[MathyTortoise]

Then I found this forum!

I grew up on TI calcs and have most of the graphing line, from TI-85 to TI-nspire Touchpad.

I think the TI-86 is the sexiest calculator ever made, aesthetics wise.

I discovered HP when I found my mom's 48G, which baffled me. I am finally getting the hang of thinking through solutions using RPL, but I haven't done any programming so everything is still a little inconvenient to type in.

Matrices are absolutely maddening. Even if I master my HP 50G, and 48G I guess, I will never approach doing matrices with anything other than my TI-nspire; no other calculator is faster for input.

My mom also had a 32SII, which is just gorgeous.

How should I get started learning to take advantage of my HP 50G? Google was obviously the start, and it led to this! I also understand that learning is completely led by the math I am doing, but I like to think that taking an explorative approach to using my calculator will help me learn math; at the very least I get exposed to the ideas.

Lurking around I find people adore the power but are spoiled by the button feel and layout, and a drop in quality. Personally, as someone who has recently become addicted to collecting calculators, I don't think it even matters. It is astonishes me that people who are so proud they can do all that math they are mentally capable of on a 20 year old machine will bitch that something objectively more powerful is inferior, simply because the plastic is lighter.

I will use two or more calculators at the same time simply because input and answers for certain things are just faster.

Ultimately, the 50G is satisfying and while I press the buttons on both the the 50G and 48G, I realize that I actually prefer the 50G. It gives in slightly faster, and the click is not so loud to get annoying. I am confident that I can do input everything without looking at the screen and with the final operation I will get the correct answer.

Whatever. I am a happy owner and I am excited to start mastering this beast. Apparently, the TI-89 Titanium is comparable to this, but it is not much fun using that. It has such an unpleasantly busy homescreen and a weird boxed in command line.

Okay, while I am still tired and scattered, I'll bitch and ask a question. The HP 48G make weird vertical stripes when changing screens. While adjusting the contrast on the HP 50G, I noticed that similar lines appeared. Will this be a problem in the future? I feel that a lot of the complaints over quality comes from the desire to use these machines until out deaths, and we really want our calculators to stay useful forever.

Okie. I am excited to have become a part of this dying community. I hope to contribute something useful in the future.