Just joined the club

[Ryles]

Hello,

I'm an embedded software engineer. I'm often converting between hex, decimal and IEEE 754 floats. My work also crosses over into electronics though, so I sometimes need to work with complex numbers.

A couple of years ago I started using the RPN mode of the calculator app on my android phone (RealCalc). It didn't take long before my brain got used to it and I was getting frustrated with windows calculator. I also wanted a dedicated physical calculator. So, I got an HP-35s. In theory it ticked the boxes of a physical RPN calculator, but it feels too plastic and doesn't cope with complex numbers or different bases very well.

So I did some research, tried some simulators and decided to go for two calculators: a Swissmicros DM42 (bought direct) and an HP-16C (from TAS and sent by the dreaded GSP from the USA to the UK).

It's early days, but so far I'm very happy with both.

The DM42 is a very capable machine with lots of customisation possibilities. I've written a few little programs inspired by the Casio fx-61f to perform impedance calculations.

I took a bit of a gamble on the 16C, as the listing didn't have a load of information. I'm perfectly happy with the unit I received though. After a careful clean my work colleagues don't believe it isn't brand new. There was evidence of a battery leak, but only on the pin side, so it was easy enough to scrape off. The worst cosmetic defect is a minor scratch on the brushed metal face plate, but it's on the very top where it wraps around, so not visible in normal usage. Nothing matches the 16C for base conversions and bit manipulation. I will be using it regularly, but I'll also be looking after it. It's lovely to have a piece of history (that you'd find in a few museums) sat on my desk. Serial number is 2447A14389, which makes it 3 years younger than me!