What's your favourate scientific pocket calculator?

This one, no idea what it is apart from Casio but it's over 20 years old now, had it since March 2003.

I'm looking at the fx85s I got for my A-Levels. It also still has the 'approved for examinations' sticker from Sheffield Uni on the back which has been there since 1997 🙂

For me being a land surveyor the casio fx 730P, basic language and trig calcs in degrees not radians. Also my old calculator that had a K function allowing multiple subtractions from an initial entry. Balls to memory recall A etc

Can't recall exactly what I had in the 80s, maybe a Casio FX-361 Scientific Calculator?

+1 for the mighty fx-115.

Although mine is a S, not MS...whatever that means. (sport, mega-sport?)

I can't believe how dear calculators are!

£363 for this Casio. https://www.casio.co.uk/s100x-bk-flagship-desktop-calculator-black

Fx115-W still lives on my desk, must be from 1995ish

I still have one of these, it must be 40 years old, still works fine. I got a better Casio one when I went to uni but I still have a soft spot for the old Sharp.

A Texas Instruments LCD job with quite "clicky" buttons from the early 1980s. The screen went blank when you pressed a key.

Edit - THIS!  http://www.datamath.org/Sci/Slimline/TI-20.htm

Use a CASIO MS-108 now. Got an old CASIO fx-P401, but the my eyes don't like it anymore :-/

Sanyo for me back in the 80s - like the one below - I had no idea how to use it though!!...🤣

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Mine is the Casio fx-4500PA Programmable that's beside me on my desk.

I still have my TI-52 from school on my desk, it is not far off forty years old

RealCalc app on the phone

I use the standard fx85 or whatever it is on my desk but portable? Phone app, surely

Whatever is available in the work stationary cupboard.

My uncle had one of these - it was like stepping into the future. You could play a lunar-lander game which was incredible.

I had a TI-83 for A-levels/Uni and thought it was great. I simply use an interactive Python prompt these days though.

I had no idea how to use it though!!

I still remember that glowing feeling from understanding what every single button did. But did anyone ever actually use Gradians in real life?

@thepurist

But did anyone ever actually use Gradians in real life

Only if all the other angle measurements were gon.

If I needed a calculator these days it would be one of these https://www.swissmicros.com/product/dm42 or maybe the 41X.

Got to be my HP41CV. Spent all summer working on a farm to be able to afford it. Was about £250 back around 1982, so not cheap!

iPhone turned on it’s side?

FX-451 here.

As above, I've been looking at the Swiss Micros for a while, they look very impressive, but just can't justify one when Excel or a phone does everything I need.

Favourite? I had one and stopped using after I left school... Took some digging through draws but I finally located my Casio fx 115, purchased 85-86, last used in anger around '89 for my GCSE's. Solar powered and it still looks to work fine.

One of these for o-levels...

Followed by one of these for a-levels and uni

Favourite though is my very first one.  From 1976 a Rockwell.

One of these bad boys

Ok not technically a scientific calculator. But hey ho.

https://www.si.edu/object/texas-instruments-little-professor-teaching-calculator%3Anmah_334611

First calculator was a Commodore 776M (had to google to remind myself).

http://www.arithmomuseum.com/album.php?cat=c&id=350&lang=en

But the favourite calculator ive had (still have) is a Casio fx-4500 like @keando

I can’t believe how dear calculators are!

My Sinclair Scientific back in 1975 was 30 quid. That's over £200 in today's money, though more importantly back then it was getting on for 200 pints. Plus it was rubbish at Trig so for surveying I still had to reach for the 7 figure log tables.

80085

FX-100 still sitting on my desk.

Bought for me as a birthday present in 1981 and used through O- and A- levels.

Still has an AbleLabel on the back with my parents' address and phone number: 4-digit STD (no 1) and 5-digit home number.

For degree (1986-1989) and PhD (-1992) I bought a Casio programmable calculator that saved hours of tedious calculations for lactose extractions, RIAs and the like.  Probably tucked in a draw on the day I discovered Lotus123.

I had a Casio Fx-451 like Cougar’s - bought it in 1982 or 1983 from Millar’s in Queen Street. Served me for both my engineering degree and then a Masters. I liked the size as it fitted in the chest pocket of the ex-German Airforce flying suit that I spent many of my undergraduate years wearing having cycled in from the south side, chained my bike to the railings on Montrose Street, quick shower and dived into lectures in my onesie 🤣

A very similar one to the Sanyo pictured. Got it in 1988 when starting a job involving a lot of use of octal. Still going strong with original batteries having survived a subsequent teaching career as well.  Fun showing kids welded to chargers, a calculator whose batteries went in 20 years before they were born.

Am I going to be the first to claim the geek kudos of loving an RPN calulator? I remember having to get my mum to write a cheque to buy one of these from the computer triader magazine (Micro Mart???) BITD.

Though I did recently buy a TI-85 that I could only have dreamed of while doing my A-Levels.

In reality, I nearly always use the app on my phone, the above calculators are a bit like riding the bike you wanted from the 90s...

FX-39 baby !  (I bet it's in the garage somewhere)

http://www.arithmomuseum.com/album.php?cat=c&id=53&lang=en

FX-39 baby

I happen to have a fx-19 which is just a couple of years older and is very similar, It probably has the same vacuum tube display which I like using especially the clicking sound it makes when first turned on.
Thr fx-19 was the first calculator with a fraction button but it doesn't have bracket buttons like the fx-39.

Am I going to be the first to claim the geek kudos of loving an RPN calulator?

You certainly claim that crown, although the previously mentioned swissmicros are inspired by the HPs and also use RPN logic. I've never used RPN and not sure how long it'd take me to get used to it.

I also use the calculator on my phone but it is just nice to use a calculator with mechanical buttons when at my desk.
I've also found the implementation of things like precision to be very variable on the phone calculators e.g. the samsung app applies a lot of rounding whereas the google one has much better internal precision.

Always been a Casio fan here. Growing up in the 80’s they were just better built than others (IMHO).

Did my GCSE’s with this:

FX-7500G SCIENTIFIC FOLDING GRAPHING CALCULATOR 1988

Both kids have done well at maths and being a geek dad have both had Casio top of range (I mean they are about £100… so compared to other crud we spend on an investment) graphing calculators at age 15. My suggestion is buy them in YR11 as if they are mathematically inclined they will doss about and learn the calc ahead of when they need it at A-Level.

I still had to reach for the 7 figure log tables.

I remember using those for basic trig in Junior school, probably aged 10. Barlow's 5 figure tables IIRC...

Favourite though is my very first one. From 1976 a Rockwell.

Blood and stomach pills, I think I have one of those squirrelled away somewhere still.

Am I going to be the first to claim the geek kudos of loving an RPN calulator?

Back in college we used to call RPN "Egdelp." If anyone can work out why, it's possibly the geekiest joke I've ever posted onto the Internet and that's a pretty high bar.

No love for Neehsrm?

@cougar - Reverse Polish = Egdelp

Igmc

FX-81

I’d post a pic but I’m loath to attempt it again and be presented with some new and unfathomable reason as to why it’s failed.

Blood and stomach pills

Blimey, you are only the second person I have ever heard using that term.

Am I going to be the first to claim the geek kudos of loving an RPN calulator?

Only if you discount the HP41 and HP32 mentioned earlier in the thread....

There was an HP32 emulator on android years ago, but can't find it now.

Swiss Micro v lovely, but spendy

If anyone is hankering after some RPN calculation action then you can try this app  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.efalk.rpncalc

I still use RPN. I have, and use most days, EMU48 emulator on my phone (which emulates an HP48. After many years of using HP calculators is just find it easier and quicker. I also have a real HP48 but the phone is easier to carry.

Peak STW?
Who uses calculators these days?
If the question was, what is your favourite calculator app, then I'd go with wcalc a command line one. Much more direct than a calculator app that's pretending to look like a real-life calculator with buttons and stuff.
But that's not the question, so igmc.
PS I hate RPN.

I had an HP48GX for years, and then a 49. Eventually sold the 48 a few years back because I just didn't use it any more.

HP48 was amazing for its time. I wrote a a couple of simple games on it.

In the same spirit as the OP....

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/sep/11/the-quest-for-sky-skipper-the-rarest-nintendo-arcade-machine-in-the-world

Made a simple slide rule when I was about 10 following instructions from a book I'd found in the library. Had no idea how or why it worked, but found it fascinating, so much so that I asked for one for my birthday, a Faber Castell which I've still got today, over 50 years later. Loved looking at the functions on it, and trying to discover what they were for, but many of them I wouldn't understand til years later.

My first calculator was an HP33E, loved the style, the feel of the keys when you depressed them, the colour scheme, red display and the impenetrable acronyms on the keys. And of course, RPN. Think I was about 16 when I bought it, using a summer jobs savings. It came wth an application programming handbook with the keystrokes to program some applications- most of the stuff was to do with interest rate calcs, if I remember, but there was a program to calculate biorhythms, and best of all a simulator to land a rocket on the moon. Which was nothing like you're probably imagining.

I worked for a while in the 80's in a lab which still had an Anita calculator with a Nixie cold cathode display for general usage- I reckon the director must have kept it as some sort of a anti-fashion statement- each place in the display had a set of 10 layered tubes formed in the shape of the digits 0-9, and the appropriate ones were lit. I'm sure others have described the display better than I, but I'd never seen or heard of them until I worked there.

The Casio fx-502p I used for my O-levels. I was such a geek that I wrote a programme to solve quadratic equations that somehow fitted into 256 steps.

I still have it somewhere but wouldn’t have the faintest idea where to start these days.

CASIIO fx-992s
Still going strong after 35 years. Use it every work day.
I especially like the function where you can just SHIFT + to perform basic Pythagoras..

As in working out the hippopotamus of a triangle using 2 sides is just (a) SHIFT + (b) = , rather than have to work out the square root of (a²+b²). 5 button presses instead of 11. Handy in the field when making sure things are set out perpendicular to each other 😉

best of all a simulator to land a rocket on the moon.

And wasn't there one about cosines and cable cars or something?

Similar to @Cougar butI had the fx-450 back in the day. Binary<->Hex<->Decimal conversion indispensible at times. Also the handy constants for when you needed a bit more precision than 3x10^8 or 6x10^-34.

I recently gave that to charity as I got one that has bigger keys and works better in my dim study - Casio fx-83GTX.

Still envy my son's Casio fx-991EX-S-UH as it looks very cool. Too much calculator for me.

FX85MS here, also have a very battered FX82LB that needs new batteries by the look of it. They both do actually, the 85 will get a new one soon as its really struggling.

EDIT: Christ, just opened the 82, it looks like something from the Expanse in there.

I was going to say my Casio fx-451, but I see that’s already got an honourable mention. Bought mine when I started university, so October 1985, and it’s still in daily use - I’m a bit wary of folding it these days, so it stays on the desk rather than going in a pocket. As I recall, it cost £18, which was the same as a week's rent in a student bed sit (in London).

got to be a casio, fx115s vpam (circa 1995), including folding/clip top cover, such a neat package got me through alevels/uni and accounting exams , was dissapointed that it didnt turn on , but i've tried again in daylight and the two way power has turned it on, not switched the battery yet

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It'll need the cell replaced, my 85 is an Lr44, if you don't have any SR44 are seemingly superior but half a volt higher so check first.

Casio FX-991 took me through A-Levels and saved me during a further linear algebra exam at university.

Was looking at them in WH Smith last week, in fact. You get a lot of technology for your money now.

Another vote for the fx-100

http://www.arithmomuseum.com/album.php?cat=c&id=250&lang=en

Thanks OP, you've just made me realise I have a favourite calculator, ffs! So STW...

If anyone can work out why

Is it something to do with polish? Edit: too late

I had an HP 12C from 1990.  It never got nicked off my desk because no one else could understand the logic.  I knew I was getting old when a I realised the new recruit sent round to sit with me for a day's experience was younger than the calculator.

Come the zombie apocalypse/massive solar flare/EMP strike how are you going to write 5318008 on your HP's and Casio's?

(casing removed for cleaning/lubing)

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@lorax - thanks for posting that; my O, AO & A levels were assisted by the next model, the FX-602.  HP ownership levels was similar to that of being left-handed, and I always liked the HP voyagers, more for the landscape orientation.

When I will the lottery I'm going to buy a Curta:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

When I will the lottery I’m going to buy a Curta:

Yep - a Curta is hopefully one day my ultimate boot sale find.

Until then.
https://curta.org/emulators/

When I was a student (a long long time ago) a blind mate of mine had a braille mechanical calculator. It was an extraordinary piece of kit and incredibly fast.

@drlex - what luxury, 512 programmable steps!

My Acorn System 1 had 1k of RAM, but given that it only had a hex keyboard, an 8 digit display, and a hopeless system for recording onto cassettes it was quite a challenge to fill it up...

That is the first time I've seen an acorn system 1, it looks like a tough nut to program with that onboard keyboard.

Is it something to do with polish? Edit: too late

I solved the anagram in 0.68 seconds but it took me practically an eternity to associate the similie 🙂

I went down a rabbit hole of collecting Hewlett Packard calculators a few years ago.

Still have a few including the 48G plus a Swiss Micros DM42.

i use one every day and can’t remember how to use a non-RPN calculator it’s so ingrained!