Calculators you regret buying?

[polbit]

(12-13-2023 02:41 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  Hello!

(12-13-2023 01:57 PM)Marco Polo Wrote:  It is quite interested to observe how much RPL is not liked by RPN user, but the contrary is generally not true :-)

I think the RPL calculators would have had more success if "classic keystroke programming" would have been offered as an alternative to RPL (like the switching between RPN and algebraic mode on later models).
All the users of previous machines (from HP65 to 41/42) would have instantly felt at home on these calcuiators and enjoyed the extra features like unlimited stack, graphics and CAS. But the prospect of having to work one's way through 1000 pages of manual before being able to program the calculator turned away a lot of people, many of them for good.

Regards
Max

It it certainly up to you to "turn away, many for good" because RPL is sufficiently different from RPN that it requires some time commitment to learn and become proficient in. That doesn't however make RPL an "abomination" because you spent whole of two hours playing with an old 48SX and didn't grasp it/like it.

As far as success in the marketplace, RPL calculators succeeded no matter how you look at it. Spanning 28 years from 28C in 1987 to 50G in 2015, and having many, many dedicated resources like its' own newsgroup comp.sys.hp48, to hundreds of books, user groups, etc.