Is a spare 35S a good idea or redundant?

[rprosperi]

(03-21-2017 07:27 AM)Dieter Wrote:  Honestly: is this a real world problem? Do you have dozens of long printed program listings that have to be entered? And finally: what do you do with well-respected calculators like the 67, 41 or 42? They do not have a checksum feature at all! Are they useless if a program has to be entered manually? Are you mistrusting them as well because there is no checksum to compare? Come on...

This is a fair comment and reasonable question which deserves a reply. The 67, 41 and 42 came from a known and verified team, with well established credentials for testing, quality and attention to detail. The 35S, though branded HP, from an engineering and quality point of view comes from some 2nd rate bulk manufacturer, with clearly limited budgets, skills and/or staff allocated for testing.

My point, which Dieter has correctly pointed-out that I did not make very clear, is that if a feature, whose sole purpose is to verify the integrity and correctness of a program, is itself fundamentally flawed, this tells us a lot about the overall quality of the design and/or testing that went into the machine.

I agree the 35S is an OK machine to use for simple daily non-programming use, but if you need to use advanced features or extensive programming, other machines are likely to provide you with more confidence and trusted results.

Like any tool, if I don't trust it, I don't want to use it when the work matters. YMMV.