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What is the best BASIC Pocket Computer
02-27-2019, 12:12 AM
Post: #115
RE: What is the best BASIC Pocket Computer
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Hi, Jlouis:

(02-25-2019 03:48 PM)Jlouis Wrote:  For the finance 1421, I think the basic language makes it much better than any other finance calculator

Indeed !

The HP-12C is a fantastic machine and the most successful financial calculator ever hands down. I love it and I've had a great time discovering its many capabilites, see my articles "HP-12C Tried and Tricky Trigonometrics" and "HP-12C Serendipitous Solver" for instance.

But as far as capabilities are concerned, it's far from the most capable finance calculator ever, that would be the fantastic SHARP PC-1421 that you mention, which can literally run rings around the HP-12C in terms of speed, RAM, programming capabilities and perfect integration of its financial functionality in the underlying BASIC language, with many specific financial BASIC keywords written in its internal assembly language and thus executing at full speed.

Add to that the possibility of saving/loading programs and data to/from external media and the possibility to print your results to a dedicated printer, neither of which can you do with an HP-12C.

Last but not least, though it's a financial model it's got a fully fledged Level 2 BASIC language including all necessary keywords for general-purpose programming, including trigonometric functions like SIN, COS, ASN, etc. That's very unlike the HP-12C, which lacks such functions and many others.

The aesthetics and built-quality are also very good, with a slim, attractive metallic body with an added golden tint, much larger alphanumeric LCD display (no annoying numeric keycodes) and pretty decent keyboard and there's little to be desired. On the minus side, though pretty slim it's still larger than an HP-12C so it won't fit your shirt pocket that well and its two CR2032 batteries won't last for years of use as the HP-12C's do but then nobody's perfect ... Smile

I've got two mint SHARP PC-1421 financial pocket computers in my collection and couldn't be happier with them.

Regards.
V.

  
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RE: What is the best BASIC Pocket Computer - Valentin Albillo - 02-27-2019 12:12 AM



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