[speedgoose]

I think I will stick with a TI-89. No RPN, but that’s not necessarily a problem. More importantly, it has a CAS (Computer Algebra System). I wonder why CAS aren’t more common on such calculators. The technology exists since decades and it’s great. I know it’s not allowed in some school exams, but calculators already have exam modes.

[fouc]

HP-28 series had CAS (first released in 1987), they were replaced by HP-48 series which also had CAS.

RPN was lovely because it was significantly faster to operate with. I remember showing up at math class having just received an HP-48G "because it's what the engineers use" and everyone else just got TI-89s because that's what the teacher had (TI gave teachers free TI-89s and did more marketing). The math teacher hosted an impromptu calculator speed contest and I beat out everyone else by a significant margin.

[Jach]

Yeah I won't give a serious thought to anything that doesn't have full symbolic support. I gave my nephew-in-law my old TI-89 Titanium last year, he was entering 8th grade and I got it midway through 9th grade and it served me well all the way through my CE undergrad. Arithmetic, trig, statistics, basic calculus, differential equations, laplace transforms, vector calculus, it handled so much, and it was easy to use TI Basic to add new functionality/shortcuts... Prior to that I was happy with a cheap non-graphing scientific calculator (I think it was a Sharp EL-531WBBK Translucent Blue). It was fine for algebra, trig, geometry, and pre-calc science courses.

My dad has an HP-15C that I've always thought was cool but I never really liked to use it for anything. This new calculator is also really cool but I can't imagine ever owning one. I don't need to do much calculation anymore anyway so it's not like I need any calculator at all (hence giving away my old calc). I'm also usually at my PC, or a laptop, or I can ssh to my home system with my phone (if the phone's basic calc app is insufficient). For simple calculations I've most commonly used a Python repl since like 2007, but for anything more advanced these days I'd pull out one of the PC programs I was exposed to in the later parts of college (e.g. matlab or octave+symbolic and other packages, or maxima). But I also have used Python + libraries or Lisp + libraries, and would like to someday redo my Stats education with R. Hand calculators just seem really antiquated to me now.

[arthurcolle]

check out the HP Prime sometime. I got it for myself in a moment of retrocausal nostalgia and it's pretty awesome. I'm using 95% of my willpower not to get this linked product haha. Moving around a 3D surface with my finger just never gets old