Re: OT: Which non HP Scientific calculator? Message #13 Posted by Crawl on 28 Aug 2010, 10:27 a.m., in response to message #11 by Mike Morrow
I have that calculator, but I prefer the Sharp I mentioned above for a few reasons.
Superficially (sue me), I think black calculators usually look better than silver ones.
I also like that the Sharp has more functions directly accessible from the keyboard. For example, all the linear regression functions are there out in the open. For the Casio, you need to go into menus. This is also something the Sharp has over the HP35s (another is that the HP35s's base 2/16 stuff is really poor)
As I recall, both the Sharp and the Casio use a number code to select scientific constants (Eg., 01 gives the speed of light in m/s), which is not a very good way of doing things. The HP35s (or 50g...) has the advantage here.
On the plus side, the Casio has a pseudo-programming feature which isn't even documented. The manual mentions the multiple line replay feature, but it's not clear why you would ever want to use it. However, the lines can use the memory registers and can be used to assign values to them, so you use the feature to do things like calculate infinite series more easily. It's only "pseudo" programming because it doesn't run automatically, you need to press the equals button to step, and of course there's no branching.
Though if you'd want programmability, I guess you could ask why you wouldn't just get the HP35s (or, again, the 50g)
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