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If you have a Palm (especially one with the larger high-resolution screen like the Tungsten T3 or TX), there's the GPL software Power48 http://www.mobilevoodoo.com/power48.htm. You choose the calculator emulation of a 48SX, 48GX, or 49G. Choosing to emulate either of the 48 models gets you the large ENTER key that RPN purists seem to prefer. Unfortunately soft keys are just no substitute for those honest-to-goodness hard buttons.

Just a satisfied user, in no way affiliated with Power48.

... and of course, I'm a dumbass and forgot the link :(

http://www.mobilevoodoo.com/power48.htm

Just get a Palm..

Then its pretty useful for the things that might occupy the most of your time.

It's also *much* more fun to program when you need to do it yourself. It's also easier to get it to talk to other devices.

And get other options.

If you want to emulate the 48SX, 48GX, and 49G calcs on your Palm...

http://power48.mobilevoodoo.com

They look fantastic - an impressive graphics job, and look like they work well to me. Sadly, I'm just a wannabe geek hanging around slashdot to look cool, so I don't actually follow a fraction of what they do.

How sad is that?

EasyCalc???

You want real RPN on your Palm just use Power48. It's a real HP emulator.

I've been using my HP 48SX since '93 or so. Back then it cost something like $300. Its an amazing calculator, a lot like having Matlab and a symbolic solver in the palm of your hand, but as the years go by I kept thinking that one day its going to break and I won't be able to find another RPN calc that can do what it does.

If you have a modern-ish Palm PDA -- one that runs PalmOS 5 or newer -- you may want to give Power48 a try:

Power48 is a PalmOS based emulator for the Hewlett-Packard 48SX, 48GX and 49G series of calculators. It provides a fairly complete emulation of the Saturn CPU upon which these calculators are based and is able to run a majority of the programs available for them. It emulates one instance each of the 48SX, 48GX and 49G, and maintains complete and separate state information for each allowing the user to quickly switch between them.

Power48 is GPLed, and distributed with the HP calculator ROM files. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the ROMs are freely redistributable, but the site just says you have to have permission to use them and that they remain the property of HP. I'm not sure what the status of that is, but in any case the emulator is fully in the clear, and runs nicely on modern Palm & Sony (et al?) PalmOS devices running at least PalmOS4 (preferably, PalmOS5 -- not sure what the status of the new PalmOS6 is, but then I'm not sure anything on the market even runs PalmOS6 yet...).

In any case, some people like the nice clicky-clicky feel of an old school calculator, and that's understandable. If you don't mind tapping a glass screen though it's nice being able to have the functionality of one (or three!) of the old HP calculators in the same device that can also be your mp3 player, Tetris console, digital camera (on some models), and oh yeah Palm Pilot, too.

Not only that, but I suspect that a modern Palm PDA is also going to be faster than an old HP calculator would have been. It's a nice alternative to having to buy a new calculator...

I've been very happy carrying around an HP49G emulator on my Sony Clie. It's free, though it takes a bit of room on an external card. It's not limited to Sony devices. Check it out.

http://power48.mobilevoodoo.com/

Power48 runs on palms and palm compatibles and it emulates a HP48 at the hardware level.

It is, however, slow and locks up by sony SJ-33 rather often.

It's not as good as a real HP48 because there is no keyboard so it is very hard to tap and click as fast as you can type on a real HP48

I decided to be more specific.

Sony SJ20 is available direct from Sony, but somebody enterprising could prolly turn up a better price. And, according to the Power48 web site, the emu will run on that hardware. Performance? No idea. But, the alternative is there.

I still don't understand what "educational add-ons" there are. All the HP48 peripherals and software I've ever seen are absurdly expensive. On the other hand, there's lots of free and Free Palm software out there.

The devices were obviously designed to scratch different itches, but somebody sufficiently flexible-minded can scratch both with one chunk o' plastic.

Well, considering you can use one to emulate an HP48G, I'd say their symbolic math capabilities are just ducky.

What's an educational add-on?

It should be:

25;46*254+2462-645;2453-/

25 keys vs. 26. RPN wins again. :^)

RPN may not save that much time, but it is very clean and teaches important CS concepts if nothing else.

I've been using the free HP48 emulators for the Palm devices, and they are very cool. And free (did I mention that?). It is reported that on the Arm based devices the emulators run faster than the native 48xx calculators. Here they are. Mine is a 66 MHz. Dragonball and it runs about the same speed as my HP48. You will need a Palm device with at least 320x320 display, like the Sonys.

Spend your money on a PalmOS PDA and then get Power 48 which emulates the Saturn CPU and runs the HP calc ROMs, it's free and GPL'ed. Though if you can do with something simplier I've been using RPN as others have said, for years (though it's now $18).

Better yet, emulate the HP48GX on a Palm OS 5 (Looks best on the 320x480 Clie's I guess) http://power48.mobilevoodoo.com/

Try a Palm Tungsten + Power48, an HP48 emulator for PalmOS 5.

Since you already have a dying HP48, you can probably claim fair use of the HP48 ROM image, although IANAL.

I don't think specialized calculator hardware makes any sense nowadays, not with 200MHz+ CPUs and more user-friendly user interfaces in PDAs. I do have a 49G gathering dust (the 48 series has much better keyboards), and my trusty HP-15C from 11th grade that actually sees service every now and then.

I've got Power48 on my Tungsten T. It emulates 48SX, 48GX, and 49 pretty well. It can do a lot of operations faster than my 48GX.

Or just get yourself a PDA running version 5 of PalmOS (lower versions are supported for certain PDAs) and use an emulator to turn the PDA into your old HP48S.

The emulator seems to get good reviews. Unfortunately it doesn't run on my Treo 90. :(

If you're attached to you're HP calculator, there are rumors circulating that HP will reenter the calculator business. Details can be found here.

If, however, they do not, there is always the Power48 PalmOS based emulator you can rely on if you original calculator decides to die.

This is an awesome proggie for your Hi-Res PalmOS devices, and emulates the Saturn Processor, with all the functions of your favorite HP Calc... i've been using it for a couple of days only, and i can see the native ARM support on the Tungsten devices produces results even faster than the actual calc.

It actually emulates the Processor, and runs off a HP ROM, so, everything is there.. give it a spin!

GPL'd Too!... (not the roms, Though)

i dunno, i use an HP 48GX on my Clie and and the only problem i have with it is that it has to load every time i start it. - 20-40 sections are wasted every time!

now if only i could beam the software from my physical HP 48GX.... :\

There is very powerful HP 48 emulator available for your PalmOS device. Even runs my old HP 48SX programs.