limited edition HP 15C scientific calculator - get yours tod

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ay!

Some of you in this forum may be interested to know that HP is putting out a limited re-release of 15C calculators.

This calculator is a true classic. It was first released in 1982 and many are still in use today. The feature set is simple, yet powerful (including support for numerical integration, numerical solving/root finding, complex numbers, matrices, and linear regression) with nothing buried in menus (every function is accessible in 1 or 2 keystrokes).

This is a perfect calculator for a science or engineering student. Except in math where I need symbolic answers, I use a scientific calculator most of the time because I rarely use the additional features available on graphing calculators. Graphing calculators are big, clunky and slower to use for simple numerical math because you often have to navigate menus to get to the functions you want. This thing is especially great for classes where graphing calculators are banned. That numerical solver can really save your ass when you wind up with some trig equation that you don't know how to reduce, for example.

Another thing I love about the 15C is the keystroke programming (which is also simple, yet powerful). There are instructions for indexed looping, indirect addressing of registers (like a pointer), and subroutine calls. With all the math functions available on the 15c, you can quickly bang together programs to solve a wide variety of science and engineering problems.



It's available now from buy.com for $84: http://www.buy.com/prod/hp-15c-scientific-calculator/223173356.html

I'm getting two.

Very nifty. I was considering a 12C for my accounting needs (I'm working on a Business minor), but I went with the less esoteric HP 10bII+. Did you know HP made a Programmer's Calculator back then? It does binary math with outputs in hex. Unfortunately it didn't sell.

The HP 11C is the best calculator I've ever had--I'll have to get one of these!

You mean those things are worth money? Sheeze!!
My old man loved that s**t and maybe i shouldn't have tossed that "old crap"?
Maybe I didn't toss it, come to think of it. I toss nothing, unless forced to.

He bought the VIC 20 and life was never the same around the house, I actually got into it.

My bad, I should read before I write, ya think? He was into TI, sorry, never mind.

84 bucks for a scientific calculator? If I need numerical calculations done, GNU Octave is free.

And if you must have a portable calculator, my loyalties lie elsewhere than HP. Don't mess with Texas Instruments.

The HP 16C... if I ever graduate college (I will!) I am going to buy one of those as a gift to myself.

I have a 10B, original version, that I bought in I believe 1997 at the height of my obsession with the stock market. I never did invest in stocks-never had the money. But I still have the calculator.

Even though I am a TI man, my dad is a huge HP fan- he still has one of the old ones from the 80s. I decided to pick one up for him as a surprise. Anyone who hasn't bought one of these yet- you have missed your chance, for now at least. Amazon is out of stock, and if you follow the buy.com link in the OP the calculators now cost $200 apiece, which is beyond the bounds of reason for a scientific calculator, no matter how good it is.

Anyways, now that it has arrived and I've had .a chance to play with it a bit... it's not for me. Yes, it is nice. Certainly way ahead of the curve for 1981 when it was introduced, but a modern TI-36x Pro has at least as many features with a better display and a more user-friendly interface at less than a fourth the price. I still believe RPN is too steep a learning curve for what ends up being relatively marginal efficiency gains. For the old RPN die-hards though, this is a very nice little gadget.

My dad had one of those (it still works to this day, I think) and I even bought the business version of it (the HP 12C) at one point, just because it was RPN. I'm pretty happy with the HP 35s I've got now, though.

I wonder if there's something innate in people that makes them like or dislike RPN. It isn't really much of a shift at all, and I've always found RPN mentally pleasant, which I can't say about algebraic.

I've always thought of it as somewhat akin to the QWERTY vs Dvorak keyboard layouts. It's a preference, either way is probably about equally effective, but most people are used to one way and the small minority that prefers it the other way has some real fanboys in their midst. The main benefit to algebraic input is that you don't have to learn the syntax. You just type what you want. Although it is a bit disconcerting/awkward to try to use parentheses on a single-line display like my TI-36x, this is not so much an issue now since multi-line displays are cheap.

My 28s still works

I had one of these in the 80's. Anyone who has tried one knows the sensuous pleasure of each keystroke. Just a really satisfying positive tactile feedback. This series of calculators is legendary for their durability and reliability.

I learned programming on my 15c. For example, I programmed it to play blackjack and a game that generated a random number and gave you high or low clues until you deduced the answer. Around that time, I also bought a Vic-20, as someone else mentioned. Computers were amazingly fun, considering how primitive they seem now.

Truly that calculator is very classic yet it's still very helpful until now specially to students.But because of the advent of new technologies this kind of calculator are merely used.

If you are looking for a good graphing calculator, then I know one pretty good and reliable model. This model of graphing calculators is quite popular now. Here's an article . It’s written in detail about this graphic calculator, considering all its pros and cons, so read this

Last edited by B19 on 16 Nov 2019, 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.: spam