19 Oct
2011
19 Oct
'11
1:37 p.m.
If you'd be ok with a used calculator, I tell
ya, I just couldn't
love a calculator more than my HP28S. I use it pretty much all the time.
If you'd prefer a one-piece design, the 48SX and successors are a
pleasure to use, even if the keys are a bit too overloaded with
alternate functions.
I agree thast the keyboard of the 48 and 49 seires is 'cluttered', but
there are 2 reasons why I'd prefer those machines to a 28 (I used a 28C
for several years and bought the first 48SX I could)...
1) The 48SX has a seiral port, you can load/save stuff to a larger
machine. It even uses a standard protocol -- kermit (I think the G-series
adds Xmodem).
2) Unit management. One the 48 and later machines you can attach a unit
to a real number so you ahve something like 2.5V or 7.8_mm or whatever.
The amchine will stop you doing dimensionally incorrect things like
adding currents to voltages. It will also keep track of the units and
handle the converstions, so you can subract mm from inches and have the
result in lightyears (or more sensibly in inches, if you're using
imperial machine tools). That's saved me a lot of time over the years.
-tony