Casio fx-50F/fx-50FH programming

[Dave Britten]

(09-30-2019 05:58 AM)ddd Wrote:  Here in Hong Kong we have a restriction where dot-matrix displays are forbidden... The fx-50FH (II) is pretty much the best approved calculator here. It is the only calculator sold here in Hong Kong with programming capabilities and no dot matrix display. Oh and no graphing calculators, of course. Even the Casio fx-MS models are banned for some reason.

By the way, the H in fx-50FH stands with for "Hong Kong", because the exam board here, the HKEAA (who sticks "approved" labels on calculators they approve... Does any other exam board do that?) didn't like the 50F plus' ability to show built-in formulas.

Also, Casio makes another non-graphing programmable calculator, the fx-5800P, which is pretty nice. The programming is certainly better than it is on the fx-50FH though, but not by much.

By the way, how common are fx-50F(H)/fx-3650P IIs outside Hong Kong? Pretty much everyone has one here but I don't see that much demand for a calculator like this other than exam requirements.

The fx-5800P is actually quite a bit more programmable than the fx-50F, and very close to what the graphing models are capable of (without the graphing). It's not nearly as fast as they are, though. Plus you can save user-defined formulas, and you can feed them into the solver if you only use single-letter variable names.

The fx-50F and fx-3650P/fx-3950P are pretty much non-existent in North America, since Casio doesn't release any of their non-graphing programmable models here. They're pretty easy to find on ebay, though.