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Well, here goes my first post here...

First off, I'm not really interested in collecting. I mainly want a calculator to just USE. So I don't care what condition it's in, as long as I can read the buttons, and it works.

I don't need any programming functions, or anything like that. Really, the functions of something like an HP-35 would be the most I'd need for most situations that I bother with a calculator in. And, if it's not suitable, I've always got the TI-83+ (which I mainly use for the big screen and the fact that other people can use it if I'm tutoring them - sometimes the "RPN means people can't use your calculator" is a bad thing...)

I'd really like something with RPN, scientific functions, and some form of battery, basically, but other than that, I don't have much in the way of requirements.

I've quickly found out that fleabay is NOT the place to go to buy one - those prices are downright astronomical, especially on the models I've been looking at (32SII and 42S - I like the PIONEER (fixed :)) styling, they sound durable enough, and the functions don't seem to be TOO overkill on those.) I've been watching the local thrift stores, though. Nothing of note yet (just old TI and Sharp printing calcs...)

I'm not really interested in the 33s, before someone recommends that - hearing about the myriad bugs, and looking at the keyboard, kinda scares me off that model.

Thanks for your suggestions!

-Eric

Edited: 7 Feb 2007, 9:43 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

Hello!

Quote:
I'd really like something with RPN, scientific functions, and some form of battery, basically, but other than that, I don't have much in the way of requirements.

How about an HP-28C? If you are not really interested in programming, than you must not bother about the horrible RPL programming language that this model has. On the other hand, they are rock solid, have an excellent keyboard (better than the 42!), and for a "poor man's programming interface", they come with a solve function that should be sufficient in most cases. And folded, they are really not bigger than other calculators and very well protected withou needing a pouch.


The batteries last very long, the display shows four lines (and even graphics, if you want to call it so) and it can link to an infrared printer if necessary.


And best of all: Collectors just don't care about 28s, you can find very good ones on eBay for less than 20 Euros (in Europe at least); last year, I bougt one n.i.b. together with an IR printer (also n.i.b.) for 50 Euros.


If you are thinking more about a stylish, vintage calculator with beautiful handling, than I would look for an hp-21 or hp-25 (if you need the extra functions). For a good one, you have to pay collectors prices however...


Greetings, Max

If you want a reasonalbe scientific RPN calculator, the Hp33s is about your only option.

If you want old Hp quality (and RPN) at a reasonalbe price here are some suggestions:

Hp17Bii: $50-100 (near new-new condition)Business calculator only

Hp19Bii: $50-150 (Hit or miss condition and price) Business & Scientific model (clamshell model, prone to battery door failure)

Hp28c/s: $30-80 (Another Clamshell as above, prone to battery door failure)

Hp 48G: $50-80 Graphics, but best price and feature ratio for Hp quality and works as a desktop calculator fairly well.

Hp 41c series: $70-150 Nice general purpose calculator, but now 20+ years old and many are living on borrowed time due to post issues and simply showing their age (these were $300 calculators bought by people who knew what they wanted and used their calculators)

My suggestion, buy the Hp33s from Hpcalc.org. It is an okay calculator and you wont feel bad abusing it (and it is an algebraic selectable, so you can share it with others if needed). It has good tactile feedback on the keys and the decimal point issue has been corrected for at least a year now.

The 33S is the only RPN scientific calculator in production. So your choices are either:

(1) a new 33S for $50, or


(2) a used older model, for which eBay is the most likely source. You might get lucky and find an old HP somewhere else, but I wouldn't count on it. You could try hpcalcman.com if you don't like the auction process, but you will still pay market prices, i.e. $260 for a 32SII or $350 for a 42S.

The 33S is functionally similar to the 32S/32SII series, but with more memory and a 2-line display. The early production units (like mine) had some bugs and a notoriously hard-to-see decimal point, but I understand that these issues were corrected in later units.

Unfortunately the keyboard is still ugly. If you can't stand the appearance, you could consider the HP-50G, which is way more horsepower than you need, but at $130 may still be cheaper than an old model

The 33S got me through the Professional Engineering exam (where it is the only RPN model allowed). I don't have any problems recommending it for general use, as long as you get a newer unit.

Edited: 7 Feb 2007, 2:05 p.m.

Hmm, so the things I've heard about the 33s being craptastic are blown out of proportion? :)

I guess, unless I see something more interesting, I'll save up for one of those.

Thanks!

-Eric

I would seriously consider the 33s. The price is right (about $50), I really don't mind the chevron keyboard. What's important to me is that it has proper hinged keys (like the HP's of old) with very good tactile feedback, and a well written users manual.


It has a nice, easy to use equation solver too.
Best regards, Hal

I must admit I had a love/hate relationship with my 33S--at first loving its speed and programming promise with lots of memory, then cursing the programming limitations (i.e., only 26 storage registers + the stats registers, only 26 alpha labels for program use and no numeric labels, no ability to directly manipulate the stack registers with STO and RCL and their arithmetical relatives). Then there was the extensive talk here about the trig bugs for cosines and tangents of angles close to 90 degrees.

But despite all this, I think it is pretty good nonetheless, and I regret snobbily badmouthing it The solver and integrator routines are faster and I think in some ways superior to their hallowed 34C and 15C ancestors.

If you have a Palm or PocketPC with a decent screen size, I cannot praise more Thomas Okken's Free42s. Fast, and a faithful simulator of the original. Moreover, the developer is really friendly and continually improving the product as bugs are found and suggestions made by dedicated users (like me). With all the calculators I have, I do a surprising amount of RPN programming with Free42--you can get RAW files into and out of the simulator without hassle. And, thanks to the 25 digit internal precision and robust algorithms, all of the most used functions give trustworthy results.

Hope this helps.

Les

I do have a Palm with a hi-res screen (a Sony Clie PEG-SJ22), so that might be something for me to look at, although I'd really prefer a hardware calculator. I like pushing buttons, not tapping away at a touchscreen. :)

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Quote:
Hmm, so the things I've heard about the 33s being craptastic are blown out of proportion? :)

I'm selling mine. It was fun to play with, and looks & feels nicer in person than I expected, but I spend way too much time trying to read the keyboard legends. Almost every key has three functions plus an alpha assignment, and the color+background combination makes it hard for me to read. I'll stick with my Pickett N600-ES slide rule for quick scientific calculations, and my Mac for anything more involved. For more accurate portable trig, my 12C with Valentin Albillo's wondeful Tried & Tricky Trigonometrics works just fine.

With that said, the 33S is pretty cool, function-wise. I agree with others' compliments in this thread about the nice solver and RPN programming. If I used it more, I'd probably get used to where everything is and not have to spend so much time hunting around.

And that's actually one reason I didn't want the 33S, it seemed too complex for my first RPN calc, and I wanted to learn RPN, not the calculator... *sigh*

I have been trying to do as many calculations as possible in Nonpareil, running the HP 35 emulator (going for simple here :)), and I'm starting to get the hang of RPN, but when I pull out the hardware TI-83+, I'm infinitely faster.

-Eric

Hi,

out of the "good old" scientific RPN calcs, and if you just need the functionality of an HP35+, you may consider a 32s or 11c. Both feature crisp displays (far better than 42s) and a complete set of scientific functions. Both are rock solid and live forever with a set of batteries.

A 32s will probably cost you less, and its keyboard is by far cleaner and friendlier than a 32sii and lightyears better than a 33s. Just take the feature comparison of MoHPC to find out if it contains all you need. For straightforward calculations in real life, both 32s and 11c are fast enough IMO.

Good luck in hunting!

Why don't you try to download the RPN OS for the Ti-83+ (I don't think it works for a plain Ti-83). It is freely available I believe. Google ti-83 and RPN together and you should find it.

If you don't need trig, the Hp12cp or the Hp17Bii are pretty good calculators to use. I suggest the 12cp over the 12c unless you buy an older unit. Why? Because the newer 12cp allows editing number input vs the older 12c wipes out the whole stack on a backspace correction.

Quote:
... I wanted to learn RPN, not the calculator... *sigh*

... which is a GREAT reason to get a 12C/CP.

I really like my vanilla 12C, and there's obviously enough programming capability to do interesting things, especially with the Platinum's extra space.

The manual is worth the price of admission, IMO, though you can download it from HP for free. I learned a fair amount about finance by playing around with the TVM functions; I doubt I'll look at loans the same way again.

It's a perfect everyday calculator for me, especially with the trig functions and the log10 trick.

Ah, I didn't even think of that. Thanks!

Looks like I'll instead be looking for a cheap Graph Link, and grabbing RPN III - that looks like it has the best integration, from what I can tell. :) If nothing else, and I can't find a good app, I can learn Z80 assembly and try to hook into the TI OS myself... talk about reinventing the wheel, though...

-Eric

I used a PEG SJ30 before switching to a Palm TX. Free42 will work fine, but you are stuck with the 320x320 screen, which could seem kind of cramped. That said, the newly added Realism skin looks pretty good.

I go to great lengths to champion Free42--it is free, a lot of fun, and Thomas has been good to me. You can get all of the versions and all the skins here .

Give it a shot--it will give you taste of what the actual 42S can do, only faster and with memory limited only by your device's RAM. Using conversion utilities I have pretty well every HP41 program of interest to me on my Palm in Free42. Can't say that about the real calc, since the only way to get a program into it is fingers. I think the lack of easy storage and transfer is the biggest weakness of the much revered 42S and 15C

Les

Since you said you like the Pioneer series (even though you said "Frontier" series) and you want RPN but in a somewhat simple, easy-to-use format, then the best calc for you is the 32S. I have one and it's one of my favorites. It doesn't have too many functions that require you to memorize all the functions (like the 41 series) or extensive use of inverse keys (like the boat-anchor series,.... 48/49/50 series) which make it aggrivating just to perform simple calculations. The older LED-type calcs (e.g., HP25, 35, 55, etc), although offer you exactly what you want, are living on borrowed time and you have to maintain the battery packs (plus, I don't think their keys are as fast as the LCD-type models). The 32SII and 42S model will cost more due to collectors always wanting to collect the higher-end model from each series. The 32S is perfect. The keys are fast and feel better than the 33S, it's RPN-only, it looks great, it uses batteries you can buy practically anywhere and they last a long time, and every HP collector will still respect you. Buy it and give us your feedback.

Edited: 7 Feb 2007, 10:21 p.m. after one or more responses were posted

Perhaps $60-80, maybe less. Fleabay isn't that high on that model.

Gah, I got my names mixed up, I did mean Pioneer... thanks... I'll go edit that. :)

Anyway, yeah, the 32S looks like a good choice as well. Looking at one on fleabay right now... hope it stays cheap... :)

Thanks...

-Eric

This seems to be a good time to buy. I am not patient and don't spend my money on much else, so I have paid too much for lots of things recently (balanced, alas, with some good deals). Prices in recent weeks seem to be much lower, but I try not to look back too much with regret. For example, I paid $300 (not to mention shipping and Canada Customs charges) for my 42S with box and manual, and it works beautifully but is hardly mint. If I had waited and done without the box and manual (I own the great DVD), I easily could have got one for 2/3rds that, but, no, I wanted one when I wanted it. My 15C is so mint I am afraid to use it, and I paid dearly for it, but since I have seen perfectly serviceable but less than immaculate ones for far less.

Live and learn. If you are patient and only want one calculator, you can get a good Pioneer for a decent price. If you can do without the manual, that will save you too--the DVD from this site would give you the manual and tonnes of other stuff, much of which is of interest no matter what HP you own.

Good luck!

Les

Well, I went ahead and shelled out $20 for a "SilverLink" (the nickname for the USB link cable), and loaded RPN III on the 83+.

It hooks COMPLETELY into the OS. As in, start it up, and you're in RPN mode until you either close it out (and it doesn't respond to 2nd>Quit like most apps do) or use a function that requires algebraic mode.

If you use a function that needs algebraic mode (there are a lot), it drops into temporary algebraic mode, where the OS behaves normally... except when you enter it, it says:

Quote:
-Temp Alg. Mode-
[Clear] => Back
in RPN Mode

And hitting Clear... drops you straight back into RPN.

Everything behaves as expected.

Big thumb up to the developer!

For those that want to seriously try RPN, but don't know it, I'll second the recommendation for RPN III - basically, if you know your 83+, you'll know RPN III - except for the RPN part.

Now, when I was buying the graph link, they had an HP 12C display model (note that I didn't see any 12Cs for sale - only 10Biis), so I played around with it. First off, the batteries were dead. But, that didn't stop me from pushing buttons. The buttons had a certain... stiffness to them that felt unnatural. Now, I did feel a very satisfying click, but is a stiffness (pretty severe compared to a TI calc, for example) normal? Note that I'm not afraid of a little key stiffness - I'm a huge fan of IBM Model M keyboards, which are pretty stiff.

The calculator did look pretty beat on, though, and it was clear that they haven't maintained their calculator section that well - the requisite 83+ wasn't an 83+, it was an old original 83! (Funny part is, they sell the 83+, and not the 83...) And, the 84+ and 84+SE had dead batteries, and the 89 was dying. I didn't try the 86.

Anyway, if the Voyager having bad stiffness in the keys is normal, does the same apply to the Pioneer?

-Eric