HP Biographies

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Full Name (family, given): RAFE, Gary E.
Account Name: Gary E. RAFE (USA)
Contact: Gary E. RAFE (USA)
Location: Toledo, Ohio USA
Entered: 26 Mar 2003, 6:47 p.m.

My interest in HP calculators goes back to the late 1970s. In high school (1976?), I had a Novus Mathematician and became convinced that the RPN model was "the way to go". At college (1978), the relatively cheap Novus wasn't cutting it, so I acquired an HP 25C. I recall that the battery packs were somewhat problematic, and that it was sent to HP for repairs at least once. When the HP 15C became available while I was working at SUNY Alfred, it became the new workhorse -- my HP 15C got me through graduate school. It still gets regular use in our home office. Just before HP announced its discontinuation in 2002, I managed to get a new HP 32SII, which travels in my bookbag. I've since added an HP 48GX to the collection; since I've found myself teaching engineering statistics courses, having access to the UTPC/UTPF/UTPN/UTPT functions for computing hypothesis test p-values has been quite useful. I don't remember what happened to the old Novus or 25C. I have, however, found a working Novus Mathematician on eBay, and I expect to look for an HP 25C before too long. Thanks for the nice (independent) HP calculator resource here. (26 Mar 2003)

An update: Found an HP-49G in reasonable condition on eBay since the previous entry, which has been added to the collection. (18 Jul 2005)

http://gary.e.rafe.googlepages.com

Edited: 11 Mar 2008, 7:06 p.m.

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