I have a cheap walmart scientific calculator, and it's slow and the buttons are poor. But I just realized to my delight that it can easily convert between rectangular and polar coordinates.

Yesterday before I noticed this, I ordered a Ti-36X. It's only $25 and can do some calculus, 3x3 matrices, and a bunch more. TBH tho it looked kind of clunky in the videos. I hope I like it too. But I'll probably use both, since the Ti-36x doesn't have all the regular calculator buttons, and it looks slower to use that way.

Holy cow I should have just ordered a better scientific calc. I've been doing lots of eqn's with complex numbers by hand. I have a computer calculator that can to it too, but that's a hassle too.

 

Made the transition from my old tried and true 36X to an old 83+ and haven't touched the 36X in ages. Takes a bit of getting used to but can do so much more and better. My 36X was an older model and the stamps on some of the keys were worn off from so much use.

 

Does anyone know of a scientific calculator program on PC with buttons that look like the average physical scientific calc. ? I've tried 2-3 calc programs but they were 2 much like learning programing. Oh well, I'll have to learn a bunch on this new TI calc.

 

Does anyone know of a scientific calculator program on PC with buttons that look like the average physical scientific calc. ?

The win10 calculator doesn't seem bad:


I liked the WinXP version better:


If I need something better, I grab a Casio scientific calculator or my TI-86.

 

The wincalc could be upgraded a lot without too much effort from a programmer. I wish someone at MS would. I wish it allowed fractional notation for a start

Apart from it's more stuff, I like using a real calculator too. I'd like a calculator with voice recognition, and I'd give her a female name.

 

Hello,

Martindale has a lot of online calculators:
http://www.martindalecenter.com/Calculators.html

Bertus

 

Can you use a phone app? I like this HP 48 sim I have it on my phone and tablet... it has RPN...

 

I can't wait till it gets here Thursday, I haven't had a new toy in a while.

For LSE numerical matrices I use some online calc. I haven't tried any other online calc really.

I want to be able to graph a 'simple' function , with ease, but I give up at the instruction book that's a chore.

I downloaded GNU Octave, aparpartently it's like free matlab. SO far, I can't do anything, it's like a new video game with buttons and tabs everywhere.


Sometimes I just want a simple plotter of polynonials or trig functions, that has a nice visual interface, to make it easy to make a graph.

 

I like this one from Casio. The reason is that I can extend the number of digits to to do factorial calculations with enough digits to get the results I need

https://keisan.casio.com/calculator

 

Does anyone know of a scientific calculator program on PC with buttons that look like the average physical scientific calc. ?

If you like RPN, which I much prefer, you can download the HP-42s app here, which looks exactly like the real calculator (as shown below in a snip from my PC screen).
It can also be downloaded to your smartphone, where is it also looks identical to the real unit, so your phone can double as a scientific calculator.

A neat programming feature of the HP-42s is the Solver function which allows you to solve for any unknown variable in a formula, even those with transcendental functions.
For example, you can program in the formula for the relation between R, C, and the -3dB frequency, F.
You then put in values for any of the two variables, (which can be labeled as you like, such as R, C, and F, which show up as softkeys) and it will solve for the 3rd variable.
Below I input 1000, clicked R; input 1e-9, clicked C; and then clicked F.

Another interesting feature is that it will perform all functions with complex numbers, displayed in either polar or rectangular format.
For example, it will find the square-root of any negative number.

 

Does one have to buy a Scientific Calculator today? There are more than a sufficient number of Calc Apps for an smart phone.

 

I don't have a smart phone or know RPN. I did download some other popular HP or Ti graphic calc for windows , I hope it wasn't the HP-42

 

Well I just learned the benefit of standard form of equations on a plane. So imagining something like y=x^2+4x+6 would now be easy since it's just the parabola (x+2)^2 -(y-2)=0
So it's just y=x^2 but shifted 2 to the left and 2 up

Nice, more math tools

 

I’m taking an evening class in electronics so far all I’ve needed is my iPad and a notebook. My textbook is downloaded To my iPad as is my calculator. I don’t miss hauling a backpack full of books around.

 

I got it, it's ok, I wish entering things was quicker tho, like vectors. The 3x3 matrix stuff is ok. It has lots of constants, and little equation solvers. At least it does have some natural view of fractions, etc.

Some stuff tho, it's way quicker just to do it yourself, like vector norms or dot products, the UI is too clunky. It's probably like that for a lot of things on it, but I won't ever use anyways, like stats

IDK, it'll be fine.

 

I'm liking it more as I get used to it. Here's 1 type of thing that must take longer and is annoying me right now trying to do vectors in physics, it's way easier on my old calc to do polar-rec , etc.

 

And much easier on the TI-8X calcs.

 

IDK, it'll be fine.

I've found that there's no calculator that covers all calculations you could possibly want to do. I recently had a need to calculate annualized rates of return and found that only my Casio fx-250HC could calculate \(X^{\frac{1}{Y}}\); the others didn't even have \(X^Y\). None of my similarly priced TI's could do that. Haven't checked my TI-89 yet...

When I was in college, I rented a 4 banger that could do sums of squares to facilitate polar to rectangular conversions. Buying was a budget buster because simple calculators cost several hundred dollars back then...

 

I've found that there's no calculator that covers all calculations you could possibly want to do. I recently had a need to calculate annualized rates of return and found that only my Casio fx-250HC could calculate \(X^{\frac{1}{Y}}\); the others didn't even have \(X^Y\). None of my similarly priced TI's could do that. Haven't checked my TI-89 yet...

When I was in college, I rented a 4 banger that could do sums of squares to facilitate polar to rectangular conversions. Buying was a budget buster because simple calculators cost several hundred dollars back then...

When I was in college, the simple four function calculators were banned from exams, because they were so expensive, only a few students could afford them.

I snuck into a building at night because I had left my calculator there. I was afraid my parents (who had bought it) would kill me.

 

They weren't even in the bookstore yet when I was in college. You had to mailorder one and yeah the HP was ~$400 and the TI (SR) was ~$200. And within 2 years the price had halved. Still one heck of a lot better than my slide rule.