TI59 VS the 41 Vs the 71 VS the 48 Shootout

[Ernst Fueloep]

(05-03-2014 01:10 PM)John W Kercheval Wrote:  ...
Any other TI59 users?

Yes, I used one when I was in High School; I bought it in 1979.
I have used it quite often and wrote several programs for it. One program for which I am very proud was a backtracking algorithm to solve the Solitaire Puzzle game.
See
The program run for almost a week and then produced a valid output on my PC-100C Printer where the TI-59 was connected.

I still have this TI-59 and it is still functioning. Although I have to admit that some keys have to be harder pressed to work. And the Card Reader is no longer working. It suffered the gummy wheel syndrom.

At that time in High School TI calculators were dominant in my classroom. Most of my colleagues had a SR-56, some a TI-58 and few a TI-59. One had a HP-19C. And this calculator was my first glimpse into the HP calculator world. I borrowed the HP-19C from him and was impressed by the small printer and the high quality of the keyboard. But the HP-19C was severe lacking of memory compared to my TI-59.

Of course, there were discussions which calculators are better TI or HP.
The HP calculators were way too expensive for most of us. And that was the main reason why TI was dominant.

One major advantage of the TI calculators at that time was the fact that they were using 13 digits for all internal calculations. This was true for the SR-56, TI-58 and TI-59. Compared to all the HP calculators at that time (HP-67, HP-19C, ..) they used only 10 digits.
I remember one test in a classroom where we had to solve some mathematical problem using our calculators. The teacher was using a HP-19C. And the result on all TI calculators were different than on the HP calculator. At first the teacher believed we all did a mistake. But we could show him that because his HP-19C only used 10 digits the result was wrong. The TI calcs used 13 digits and produced the correct result.
I don't remember the details of the calculations we had to perform then. I only remember the significant difference in the results between the HP and TI calcs.
The teacher said he will open a complain with HP because of this. But I never heard if he really did it and what happened then.

Now I have my own HP-19C and use it very often because of the small printer to document my results on paper.