Calculator bit the dust..... 17

[knelli]

Hi all,
I am on my third TI-85 and the display is failing . I looked at other TI models including the TI-83, TI-84 Plus C SE and TI-89 Titanium. I was able to emulate those models on my phone to see if I'd like them. I still prefer the TI-85, and really want something that does conversions easily. I found the conversion programs on the above models to be cumbersome.

What I would like a calculator to do:
I like a large display and history (like TI-85)
trig and scientific functions
x^2 button square root
^ button so I can do whatever root I need (like x^(1/4))
Conversions, including ft^2 to acre and gal to ft^3 (love the conv menu on the TI-85)
solve quadratic/simultaneous equations easily

It would be nice to have something to do decimal to fraction or add feet and inches and give answer in fraction form.

Should I get an old TI-86? Do they have better longevity than the TI-85?

I do like the RealCalc app for android. Anyone know if it is based on a calculator model?

Anyone have the TI36x Pro? CANON F-792SGA? Looks like the TI36x pro conversions are very limited.

I know a lot of you like the HP with RPN, but I'm not looking to go that route.

 

[Ingenuity]

My HP41CV is 26 years old and still working perfectly! I hope it never dies!

I purchased my HP41CV in 1982 - first year at uni - and used it every day for a couple of decades until the circuitry went bad. I sent it to a guy in Florida to see if it could be repaired but if could not. I then purchased a HP 48GX but it was no replacement for the 41.

Then a few years ago I found this app and purchased it for $25. Has all the module packs, printer...use it every day. The only app I have paid for!

http://alsoftiphone.com/i41CXplus/

 

[charliealphabravo]

If you've had 3 TI-85s then I'm sure you know this but if you hit 2nd-UpArrow it increases the contrast on the screen. Occasionally the contrast setting drops to zero for some reason making the screen look like it has died. 2nd(Shift/YellowKey)-UpArrow increases the screen intensity. 2nd-DownArrow lowers the screen intensity.

 

[jvvse]

I love how big this thread is!

I always used the TI-85 and TI-86, but when the PE exam came I switched to the Casio fx-115ES and I've never looked back. I miss all the old functions of the TI's, but they were just so slow. Takes 1-2 seconds to turn on, sometimes a second to run a calculation, while my simple Casio is instant. When I'm using the calculator all day those delays just add up and I couldn't go back.

 

[Archie264]

It used to be that to check the speed of a calculator you would have it calculate 69! (i.e. 69 factorial...I'm not being emphatic). Now I believe it would be 253! except that there's no longer any point to to doing it.

Sturr, getting an HP41CV would almost make it worthwhile to buy an iPhone.

 

[graybeach]

I bought my first Casio fx-5000F back in 1988, misplaced it soon after that, bought another one and then found the first one. Since then I have enjoyed 26 years of delicious security knowing I had a back-up for my beloved calculator. I only recently brought the newer one to work and retired the older one. The older one still works though. Whew!

 

[JedClampett]

If you're at all interested, there's a free app for an Iphone that installs a HP 48GX. The buttons are painfully small, but besides that, it's pretty slick. I started my HP journey after the 41CV, so I don't have any special loyalty to it.
I found it by searching the app store.

 

[JStephen]

I'll tell you why not to use RPN: Because TI had a big plant in the town where the college was, so by golly, we're all going to use TI Calculators!
It's basically like driving on the left vs right, whatever you get used to is best and any other way is wrong.

As to the calculators- I used a Casio fx115ES. It has some drawbacks. Basically, though, anything too complicated goes on Excel anyway.

The Rule of Shoes is that if you find some that you really really like, you'll never see them for sale again, and that seems to be the way with calculators, too. After a bit, you get used to whatever it is.

 

[archeng59]

I use an HP 50g. I tried to convert from RPN to a TI 83 or 84 graphing calculator, can't remember which now, several years ago after my HP 48g died and could not retrain myself away from RPN. Gave the TI to a friend and bought the HP.

 

[theonlynamenottaken]

I've been entertained by reading this whole thread and now feel compelled to get on my soapbox:

-- You only need a calculator if you are going to take a NCEES exam of some sort. Otherwise...

-- If you are young enough to not have some certain calculator that you already own and would defend with your life then I'm sure you have a smartphone. RealCalc cost me $3.49, runs on my phone and tablet, has up to 50 lines of stack memory, does conversions, does all the expected operations of a standard scientific calculator, and will switch back and forth between RPN and Algebraic by changing a settings checkbox. And the display on any modern touchscreen device makes every calculator ever look like something that could have been dug up in Egypt. AND, next phone or tablet I get I can still install that app without re-buying it - just like my WolframAlpha app. RealCalc has relegated my ol' school HP48 to a dusty drawer, but still, I don't use the app unless I'm out onsite, at lunch, etc. Why? Because...

-- As IDS said above, why do hand calcs at all anymore? Even when I'm doing a really rough and quick first pass to get a feel for feasibility, beam size, etc, I use Excel. That way every number is permanently recorded, fresh grads can see how you arrived at something instead of watching you murmur with a calculator at the white board and just draw the results, and I can always come back and change one number and watch the effect ripple through every other line of calcs. Really, is there any reason to not use Excel, MathCAD, Matlab, etc?

 

[JStephen]

I realize that none of you logically-minded minimum-keystroke people would do this, but I do occasionally find myself adding zero to a number on the calculator or multiplying it by one just because that's what the equation says and it's mentally easier to follow it through.

Realistically, though, if you REALLY wanted to minimize keystrokes, you probably wouldn't be typing line after line into a computer, now would you?

 

[transmissiontowers]

When I started at the local power company in 1973 (for $700 per month) I shared a Singer/Friden 1162 with an office mate. Looking on the

http://WWW I

see the list price for the calculator back then was $1195 (nearly double my monthly salary). It was a 4 function calculator and I think it was RPN plus it had a square root but no trig functions. We had a Smoley's Tables book for trig that we shared. It had 4 stacks and a CRT display tube. Later we got an HP-45 and later a HP-97. Some HP-21's came and later HP-25, then the HP-25c with the continuous memory. The sideways HP-15C came in and lastly I got a HP-41CV which I still use for calculations. I was going to night school and got a personal HP-67 to carry to class and exams.

I love RPN and can use algebraic calculators if I think about what I am doing but I don't do the parenthesis. Been doing RPN for so long it just seems easier.

_____________________________________
I have been called "A storehouse of worthless information" many times.

 

[XR250]

@ theonlynamenottaken

Why would you use excel for rough beam sizing?
You could do it on a calculator in 10 seconds.
FWIW, I don't feel that anything beats the real keypad of a calculator. Smartphone is ok for field use.

 

[JedClampett]

I just looked at some hand calculations from 1965. Everything was there. Assumptions, moment distribution, sketches, etc. When your grandchildren need to look at a structure you designed 50 years from now, will Excel be around?
Wnen everyone started getting personal computers (20 years ago), Dbase was the bomb. It did calculations, sorts all in the DOS format. What do I do with those floppy disks with those Dbase calculations on it?
We, as engineers, need to be forward thinking enough to keep records that are usuable in the future. If you do all your work in Excel, are the formulae visible? Can the work be replicated? Is it on your C: drive, soon to crash?
I'm not saying that we need to go back to those well laid out calculations of the 1960's and slide rules. But we need to consider calculations as a deliverable, same as the drawings.

 

[theonlynamenottaken]

@ JedClampett

I literally start and end every project in Excel. Type out a few paragraphs of description of the project, list all applicable codes, list info given from the client, list all assumptions, and leave gaps for screen shots I take from GTStrudl, AutoCAD, LPile, etc. From there I import worksheets from other Excel files I made in the past, like Wind 7-10, or the Concrete Calculator one I attached here. That way its just like an old school set of hand calcs, flowing from page to page in the right order. All my spreadsheets show all formula, or when doing something complicated atleast provide a text explanation, "parallel axis theorem including transformed steel". When all is said and done you print the entire workbook to PDF, and then to actual paper, incase the world decides to stop using Excel.

The point isn't to sidestep the old way, its to turbo charge it. I didn't use to be this way. What changed me was working as an expert witness and needing to document every single number, and working with GTStrudl.

 

[civeng80]

I sometimes wonder how a Hp 50g calculator today compares to a mainframe computer back in the 1970's.

I remember those mainframe monsters that programs were written by mark sense cards (a modification to punched cards).

Also inverting a matrix was a big thing back then only a mainframe could do that sort of stuff.

Makes me feel so old.

 

[makesparks]

This is a great thread...but it made me realize that I have not used a real calculator for work -- ever. I only ever needed a simple calculator or the occasional spread sheet.

Should I be happy or sad that I have not used the high level maths from my college days?

 

[jvvse]

I've tried calculators on the smartphone and I hate them. Because there is no button to feel, I have to go slow or I make mistakes. I swear I hit 4 but my phone thinks I pressed 7 and the whole calculation is invalid. It ends up taking me twice as long to do a simple calc as it would with my calculator.

 

[CELinOttawa]

@jvvse YES...

 

[MrHershey]

Have had my TI-86 since high school. So running on about 12 years now for a ~$90 investment. Maybe more. Have one row of pixels that went out a couple years ago but otherwise still works great.