Is super-accuracy matters?

[Johnh]

With personal computers for everyone, now mostly slim portable laptops, all backed up, with lots of apps and also powerful spreadsheets etc, the compelling need to work the numbers with a calculator has receded.

Engineers, scientists and financial professionals have always needed tools to do this. For about 25 years as an engineer, my programmable calcs were my most direct and personal access to number-crunching day by day. The PC's were there, but clunky, maybe shared. The calculators were quick and direct and quite powerful.

But now you can definitely manage without one, but most engineers still have a calculator on their desk. It's part of the thinking process. But almost nobody uses programmable calculators any more. Anything which 30-40 years ago would have been ideal to run on an HP41 or HP15c, is now probably more professionally put into Excel.

But an HP calculator is still a beautiful thing, and I run mine for the quick ad-hoc numbers that help me think through a problem. And I use a few small programs to help me do that.

And accuracy is fine. most engineeting calculations, at least in my field (structures) only need 4 or 5 decimal places and any more are meaningless.