How do you like the Woodstock calculators?

[Mike T.]

(12-14-2021 04:05 PM)vassilisprevelakis Wrote:  Actually, I hate the Woodstock series because of of their physical design. The case is such that you don't have a good view of the display when they are on the desk, and the display does not have enough digits.

The case looks like a bathtub and gives the impression that cost cutting was the prime consideration in their design.

So with the Woodstock's out, what would be my choice for a LED calculator?

I'd agree with you about the display angle though this is solved if you position the calculator closer to you so you are looking down on it, and as I'm not as young as I was being closer also means I can see the digits!

However, that is about the only bad thing about them really. As a student I always wanted a 29C and this has always been my 'ultimate' calculator, unfortunately at the time they were too expensive and hard to find. It seems some things never change.

I do accept that no LED calculator is ever going to compete with a more modern machines in terms of speed or functionality but I never found the limitations of the display a problem when programming, as the common key codes are easily remembered, and it is very easy to find any you don't recognise.

Of all the machines I own I would have to say that the 33C is still my favourite. It just works, and the only thing I'd change would be to give it more memory (and these days an SD card!). When I could afford it, I did get a 34C (as the 29C was no longer available) and although it is an amazing machine it just doesn't seem isn't as intuitive to use as the 33C, though I remember that there wasn't a lot it couldn't do.

As with all the LED models battery life was always a bit of an issue, even with a spare battery pack, so I brought a 10C to replace my 33C a couple of years later and almost immediately upgraded to an 11C as with just two conditional tests and no subroutines programming on the 10C is painful! Fortunately compared to other models it wasn't expensive, though it was too expensive to throw away so as no one else I knew wanted to buy it I became one of the few people to still have one.

A while later I brought a more modern 32S to replace the 34C. It has even more functions than the 34C, complex numbers, a solver and is much faster but despite this but the only reason I now use it as my everyday machine is that it does base conversions and the battery life means that when I switch it on it usually works!

If I'd not seen it reduced in a shop window in Tottenham Court Road I probably would not have brought it as by the time I got it I'd all but finished doing things that needed an advanced calculator. I've been tempted by the HP42S a couple of times but really can't justify upgrading again and one thing I have learnt from the 32S is that I really don't like menu driven interfaces.

Guess I've been spoilt by the HP33C after all. (I'll still get a 29C one day..!)