I have finally joined the 42S club

[Dave Britten]

(09-15-2019 03:46 PM)MattGreer Wrote:  

(09-15-2019 09:58 AM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Many users didn't want to move to the 48 family.

I feel that way about the Prime! lol Contrats on the acquisition.

I'm the same with the Prime. It's a lovely calculator with a great math engine, but it's just lacking too many of the features and qualities that make the 42 and 48 attractive to me. I almost never need a CAS for my work, so that piece of it is mostly wasted on me.

(09-15-2019 08:32 PM)100LL Wrote:  As a guy who has had to punch the keyboard several thousand times because I fumbled a battery install and grounded across the terminals with the base of a button...I whole heartedly agree.

The slightest slip of my fat fingers leads to a reset and needing to redo all my programs. Maddening. But strangely worth it. Labors out of passion surpass all other labors in quantity and quality.

A profound example of contradiction from HP. The ultimate RPN device, pure and powerful, successor to the 41 base and attendant program compatibility, yet for some twist of incomprehensibility lacks provisions for program transfer via some serial input.

Doesn’t matter, the love affair is too strong. The 42S is Helen of Troy

Look on the bright side, it doesn't take TOO long to refill just 8 KB of RAM. Two-way I/O would have been nice, but I think HP didn't want to cannibalize sales of their new expandable flagship the 48, so the 41 design that was passed on to the 42 ended up being positioned more as a (vastly upgraded) 15C replacement.

So far, I've never had any unpleasant surprises when changing the batteries in my 17BII or 27S, but I definitely make sure to keep a backup copy of any programs or solver equations elsewhere. At least I can print off a program, cut up the paper, and slap it on my flatbed scanner if I'm in a hurry.