Anyone still using a classic calculator?

[darrin1200]

I actually had both the TI-30 and the TI-30SLR(which is still in a box somewhere)

I keep a calculator on my Lathe bench, as well as one on my paperwork bench. My wife also uses one for the monthly budgets.

 

[MrWhoopee]

I still have my original TI calculator. I paid a lot of money for it back in '79. It does squares & square roots!
I keep a couple of my more modern ('90s vintage) TI's in the shop. Quicker than trying to pull up the calculator on my phone and I don't care if they get greasy.

 

[someidiot]

Anyone remember these? New battery and it still works as good as ever. I can even still do my cheese head junior high school "trick" with it.

Yup! I still have my TI Programmer - very nice to have around for doing hex and octal math and conversions!

 

[Chicken lights]

When I said I used a calculator, that's what I meant. I have no idea what the heck the rest of you guys are using 😀

 

[thestelster]

I believe this is what @Susquatch used in his early days.

 

[Elektrishun]

Keep these old relics ... they will be useful again... when we decide $3K is too much for a phone!

View attachment 88504

I have always been a person who buys used phones for half of what the current new cost is.

And yes, when the Zombie Apocolypse happens I will be all set with my calculator that has the solar power panel. You battery calculator guys better start looking for stationary bikes equipped with generators. Let's see who will be doing logarithmic differentiation then! 😎

 

[someidiot]

I have always been a person who buys used phones for half of what the current new cost is.

Well, if we're going there, I haven't bought one yet. Still running (and as little as possible) on some old iphone given to me by a pal. A few summers ago I signed up for service, intending to cancel it at the end of my various road trips. Did that by xmas, and then the next summer (or maybe the summer after that) signed up again - and just for the hell of it asked whether the number I'd had previously was still available, because it was insanely easy to remember from the first day. It was, so I took it as a sign and have kept it active - though I still barely use the thing, still mainly for road trips.

 

[whydontu]

I believe this is what @Susquatch used in his early days.View attachment 88533

I have one if those, doesn't everyone? Mine was acquired in 1967, long before LED pocket calculatirs.

 

[Mega arc 5040dd]

I just changed the batteries in my calculator for the 2nd or 3rd time. The wife ask why I don't just buy a new calculator. The new ones just aren't the same and mine isn't even that old maybe 15 or so years only.

 

[ChazzC]

While I had an HP-35 (purchased used in 1974 when a grad student replaced it with a HP-45, which I also bought later; the HP-35 made heat transfer calculations using fractional exponents a lot easier than using a double-log slide rule), I left the RPN dark side long ago. There are a number of promotional calculators floating around somewhere in the office that I've held onto because they are unusual (like one in the form of a 3-1/2" Floppy), these are what I use regularly:


The fx-55 lives in a drawer in the shop above the lathe, used mostly for inch/metric conversion (or when I forget how to add or subtract). The SL-300SV (still available for as low as US$5.49 at Target) sits on my desk in the office to help when I run out of fingers. The HR-10RC comes out (and gets plugged in) when I need to add a long columns of numbers and don't feel like entering them into a spreadsheet (the tape lets me quickly check that a) I entered everything and b) I entered everything correctly).

If I need to do trig I have an app:


It's faster than using the calculator on the iPhone, and I don't have to think!

 

[DougW_Sask]

I have a weakness for RPN calculators to the point where I have difficulties with algebraic calcs....I've got a pair of HP 35s - one NIB (was saving... at one time I had ambitions to write the FE/PE exams for the US...now a distant memory) - the other HP 35s lives in the workshop.

My most favourite? - the Swiss Micros DM 42 - based on HP' 42... being able to do a Y bus - Z bus inversion sooo fast was....(oops Nerd alarm just went off in the house....)

There is also an equivalent app (Free 42) that runs on IOS/Android....

Also have a fairly elaborate slide rule -I break it out every six months to remember how to use it.....

 

[jcdammeyer]

Here's what I still use. And I have apps on the PC and the phone for an HP42. Not to say that I don't have some traditional calculators floating around here and there but I'd replace them all with RPN if I could.

 

[whydontu]