Your First Handheld?

[Bill Zimmerly]

I just graduated from High School in 1975, and in preparation for college at the University of Missouri, Rolla (the engineering school) my grandpa bought me a SR-51A.

It served me well until 1979 when the alphanumeric HP-41C was introduced. I bought that and the rest is history!

(HP-41CV, HP-48S, HP-50G, and most recently, the HP-Prime.)

[CosmicTruth]

(06-17-2014 09:28 AM)Bill Zimmerly Wrote:  I just graduated from High School in 1975, and in preparation for college at the University of Missouri, Rolla (the engineering school) my grandpa bought me a SR-51A.

It served me well until 1979 when the alphanumeric HP-41C was introduced. I bought that and the rest is history!

(HP-41CV, HP-48S, HP-50G, and most recently, the HP-Prime.)

Do you know Dr. Knowles?
(i'm waiting for the Prime-X)

[Dave Frederickson]

(06-17-2014 11:47 PM)CosmicTruth Wrote:  (i'm waiting for the Prime-X)

Doesn't that come after the Prime One and the Prime 360?

[sirhecubus42]

TI-85, which I bought for college, and liked a lot before it was crushed in a freak CVT accident at work while I was a co-op. Replaced with a TI-86 I hated from day one.

[Les_Koller]

TI-1270, then TI-55, then TI-55-II, then, Thank God! I discovered HP when I got my HP 15c.

[hansklav]

At gymnasium (until 1975) we used an Aristo slide rule and a book of mathematical tables. Only one of the math teachers was interested in electronic calculators, which we called 'zakjapanners' ('pocket japs'), and we loathed him for it.

I felt the need for a calculator when I started to do research myself in the final years of Medical School (1982) and had to do statistical calculations and tests. The first one was an HP-11C, which costed me a fortune that could only be assembled when my girlfriend lent me some money… It's still in excellent condition and on its third set of cells!

In 1991 I bought an HP-48SX and was annoyed that the programs I made for the 11C had to be modified quite extensively before they ran on the 48SX due to the difference between RPN and RPL.

A few years ago I acquired an HP-35 including its beautiful manual. This started a renewed interest in the whole line of HP RPN calculators. I have several of them in a showcase.

Now I'm preparing an RPN Tutorial in trying to convert our twin sons (who used TI-84 Plus calculators at gymnasium) to RPN. None of the tutorials I could find online appears to teach all essential basics.

Hans
The Netherlands

[markhen]

Sinclair Scientific, in 1975, at high school. Wanted an HP (35, 45, 55, 65) but Sinclair was an order of magnitude less cost! Entry system approximated RPN (postfix). Still have it, still works :-)

Graduated to HP 25 at college in 1977. Probably my favorite calc ever, only complaint was lack of continuous memory... Wrote a complete "21" card game in its meager 49 steps of program! Still have it, still works :-)

Next up was an HP 41C in 1980. Best all around calc for my money. Still have it, still works :-)

Used the 41C as my primary calc from 1980 until 2010 (! 30 years!!!). Then a browsing session on TAS stumbled on a shabby HP 55 which I just had to have (my HS physics teacher had a 55 and it was an object of much desire). The 55 was not working but was easily fixed. Over the next 2 years I made it my mission to own every handheld LED HP calc (and a few other "specials")...

Today I have working (at least one of): HP 35, HP 45, HP 55, HP 65, HP 70, HP 80, HP 21, HP 22, HP 25, HP 25C, HP 27, HP 29C, HP 19C, HP 67, HP 33C, HP 34C, HP 38C

Missing LEDs from my collection are: HP 01, HP 31E, HP 32E, HP 37E

And my "other/special" HPs: HP 41, HP 28S, HP 28C, HP 50g, WP 34S, WP 31S, HP 30b, HP 20b, HP 15LE, HP 35S, HP 33S

I've dabbled with some TI LED calcs (55, 57, 58, 59) but they are difficult to keep working.... Nothing like HP quality... And of course no RPN!!

What a journey!!!

Cheers -

Mark

[Ed Look]

Mine was a TI SR-40. I loved it for a short while, but it's low quality really annoyed me. It wore out a bit after only a couple of semesters at the start of college; I replaced it with a HP-34C (lasted well beyond grad school) and since then it's been HP RPN (or RPL) calculators ever since.

Boy, to have a working 34C for daily use again... *snif*...

[TASP]

We had an early 70s TI in the house that had a square root key. Was that the SR10 ??

As for my first calculator that I paid for, that would be a Commodore SR1400 (hope I remember that right)

It wasn't programmable, but it had a couple levels of nested parentheses and some problems took a couple of seconds to work out, I was enthralled with it.

Next was an HP25, probably early 76 or so.

Then an HP-41CV when they were available.


I put a deposit on the first Radio Shack computer, but it was delayed so many times, I canceled the purchase.

Had a Sinclair computer, but the keyboard was SO bad, I hardly used it and gave it away a few years later.

[Skyblues]

My first calculator was a TI-55. I bought it when I started engineering college in 1980. I hated it but used it for about 6 months.

I took an elective math course during the summer semester and my professor, Dr. Joan Ebert, had an HP-41CV. I absolutely loved it. She let me borrow it for the weekend and my mother saw how much I liked it (and wouldn't put it down) so she bought me one (along with the Math Module) for Christmas. I used it throughout college. I still have it and it works perfect. I'll never get rid of that calculator!

[smp]

My first handheld computer was probably the TI-58C. I remember playing around with it for a short while. I'm not sure what became of it, because I got an HP-41C right around the time they became generally available. The rest is history, as they say. I couldn't financially keep up with the HP group, but I did acquire the original HP-PPC ROM and I remember playing around with synthetic programming.

Of course, over time this all fell into disuse, and I kick myself regularly for having sold off all the HP-41 equipment back in the '90s sometime. Sigh.

smp

[toml_12953]

I was going to buy an HP-35 when I was a senior in HS but before I could get the money together, the 45 came out. I bought one right away as a freshman in college. I had never used a calculator before so RPN was the only system I knew. When I tried a friend's calculator I couldn't believe how clumsy it was to do anything more than the simple four functions!

[emece67]

A TI Datamath II in 1975. I was only 8 years old.

[G. Cook]

My first handheld was a TI SR-50. I still have it and it works just like new. My favorite, however, is a Casio FX-702P. It is programmable in simple Basic with about 1500 bytes. I believe I got it about 1980. It has a thermal printer and a tape recorder attachment for storing on cassette any programs. In effect, it has a much larger memory. I used it for many routine calculation tasks in my work. I still have it and all still works.

[Francois Lanciault]

First calculator was a TI-57 in high school. My friends had HP-33E but to expensive for me.
Ti-57 died after I tried to overclock it.

Then:

Canon F73 (modified to be an F73-P)
Casio Fx-451
Sharp EL-9000

At this point I tried an HP-32S at work (supplied by the job). It was my first HP experience.

From there:
HP-48G+
HP-50G
HP-35S
HP-Prime

At this point I discovered this board...

Since then:

HP-67
HP-34C
WP-34S
HP-41CX

The one I prefer: the HP-34C

François

[Dave Britten]

(08-18-2015 09:09 PM)G. Cook Wrote:  My first handheld was a TI SR-50. I still have it and it works just like new. My favorite, however, is a Casio FX-702P. It is programmable in simple Basic with about 1500 bytes. I believe I got it about 1980. It has a thermal printer and a tape recorder attachment for storing on cassette any programs. In effect, it has a much larger memory. I used it for many routine calculation tasks in my work. I still have it and all still works.

I snagged a 702P not too long ago, and you can fit a surprising amount of utility into its meager RAM, thanks to the tokenized BASIC and 10 separate program areas typical of Casios. It's a pretty cool machine.

[Marcus von Cube]

(08-18-2015 09:09 PM)G. Cook Wrote:  ...My favorite, however, is a Casio FX-702P. It is programmable in simple Basic with about 1500 bytes. I believe I got it about 1980. It has a thermal printer and a tape recorder attachment for storing on cassette any programs. In effect, it has a much larger memory. I used it for many routine calculation tasks in my work. I still have it and all still works.

You should have a look at my CASsette IO Utilities.

[Jlouis]

My first handheld (that I bought) was a simple scienfic TI SR40 LCD in 1981. It was usefull, but the keyboard had failured soon. I still have it but it is very hard to use due the keyboard often missess keystrokes.

Afterwards someone that I don't recall gave me a Casio fx-101, from 1976, very nice, still working flawlessly till today, but only issue is that it is in the battleship class (Walter, where are you?).

Then my brother told me about HP and I bought a 15c and it was love at first sight. I used it for 25 years! But sadly it was stolen. After that I bought many HP's calculators. Now I'm back to school and I'm very happy to use them all.

Most people treats calculators as simple tools, but I don't know why, I'm very fond to them.

Maybe I'm not alone.

Live long and prosper

Warm Regards from Rio

JL

[4ster]

My first hand held was Alice Tomlinson's in the 5th grade.






Oh, I guess that really isn't the topic.

When I was a senior in high school (1974) my dad gave me a Commodore MM-4s. The "s" indicated that it did square roots, I think; it was not a scientific calculator. It was clear after a few quarters in college that I needed something a little more worthy. I coveted my neighbor's HP-25c but the TI-30 cost a lot less, so that is what I got. I know, it was not in the same league, but my budget at the time had to account for girls and beer too.

I seem to remember that the TI-30 didn't last through school before it gave up the ghost.

I used a few credit card sized calculators attached to my "Rite in the Rain" field book to help with basic math for timber cruising. I also bought a TI financial calculator sometime early in my career, but I don't remember the model.

In the mid '80s I asked an engineer with my culvert supplier to help me with a stream flow study using depth of water in a free flowing culvert to measure stream flow, and he used a HP-41 with a Manning flow program to do it. About that time HP-41s were starting to be used in other forest engineering and forest management problems an I decided that I needed one.

[Les Bell]

(08-20-2015 04:03 AM)4ster Wrote:  My first hand held was Alice Tomlinson's in the 5th grade.

I think this comment wins the thread, but I still have to ask: didn't you hold your mom's hand when crossing the road?