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Ask Slashdot: Cheap Second Calculators For Tests?
Rich0 writes "I own an HP 48 calculator that I'm quite content with, but soon I'll need to take a certification exam where this calculator will not be welcome. I'm sure this is a common problem for those who own higher-end calculators. Sure, I could just buy a random $15 calculator with a few trig functions, but I was wondering who makes the best moderately-priced calculators for somebody who already has and appreciates a programmable calculator and just needs something simple. Bonus points if the calculator can handle polar vector arithmetic and unit conversions, but it has to be simple enough that virtually any exam would accept its use."
I believe the TI-36X Pro would probably do what you are looking for. It is approved for use on Professional Engineer tests, from what I have read.
I have a TI-36X Pro for basically the same reasons you outlined. It's quite affordable too, and if you're in the US (I'm not) then it is really easy to find.
Check out the NCEES Calculator Policy.
I had a non-programmable calculator in college but it died and I didn't need a calculator at work. I bought a TI-30Xa for when I took the state professional engineering exam. I am still using this calculator as an engineering professor. Plenty of capability.
Are you certain your HP will not be welcome?
I would suggest the HP-11C. It's available on ebay, and is not $15 cheap, but it is an RPN programmable scientific, of less complexity than the HP-48. I am an RPN fan, so I would go the extra mile to get an RPN calculator.
Cost me $14 brand new, does "all and then some" in terms of my usage scenarios.
step 1: buy a retarded large button lcd calculator with w huge screen and fixed digits (you know, 0-9, ., +, *, /, -)
step 2: replace the buttons with joysticks
step 3: replace the screen with something around 300dpi
step 4: put in an arm processor and bring up linux
step 5: add wireless networking
step 6: swap out the aa batteries with lithium
step 7: develop a chorded keyboard input on the now 9 position keys
step 8: write an emulator to pretend to be the original calculator
step 9: profit
For "polar vector arithmetic and unit conversions," you will want a calculator with the following four keys: "+", "-", "x", "/".
If you're a complete math wuss, you can indulge yourself with square root, sine, and cosine buttons, too.
If you need much more than that for your listed items, then you shouldn't be worrying about a calculator. You should be learning the fucking material so you have the tiniest bit of understanding about what you're doing.
Because the programmable calculators can do more than just math.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I come across TI-35's and such at thrift stores for a few bucks. You aren't going to uses it again much so just re-donate when you are done with it.
I have a Casio FX991ES, it has a nice display, can do unit conversion, polar arithmetic and is cheap.
It's pretty common in Australia. It has a different model number in every country.
For High School and early College degrees, knowing the basics helps later work when working with the more advanced tools. After learning (and being able to know) the basics then move into the more advanced tools. Both are needed. Generally when working on complex systems it's easiest to understand when it can be broken down into clear, demarcated segments. Overall it's complex but each individual segment is made up of basic understandable ideas. That way you don't need to look at everything all at once. This is the way much of networking works using the ISO reference model. Knowing the basics helps when you need to fall back
Neil Cherry - Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
Always used them for 15 years. Lost one long time ago, bought the same again (current model).
sharp el-531w
Fuck doing math by hand, thats what computers are for!
I mean seriously, lets give everyone a TI-89 and teach them to use it!
Even better, make students learn a legitimate math software, like MathCAD or Maple or something
Why hold ourselves back?
Using calculator to aid us resolve math problems faster by itself is not a problem
The problem being ...
... too many young uns (and the not-so-young uns) relying too much on the calculators because they do NOT have _any_ solid math foundation
Those who have solid math foundation, even with using high-end calculators would have the capability to sense if the answer is correct by instinct, for there is always the possibility of inputting the formula wrongly in the first place
Unfortunately, for those without solid math background, they will take _any_ answer appears on the screen, as they neither possess the solid math instinct, nor the knowledge if they have keyed in the right formula or not, in the first place
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I really liked my software engineering class's exams: given online (but in person in the class room), internet allowed. Bring your laptop (or borrow a provided one)! Use anything other than specifically asking people. That class did not require pencils or paper, or books.
The idea that you need to be able to so something without references does apply to some fields I suppose, but it sure doesn't apply to me. I just need to know the topics well enough to know what to look up when, and to apply my findings. I'm not going to memorize implementations of everything; thats off in my brain's L4 cache: the internet.
I like calculators and picked one of these up for a spare. For a non-graphing, non-programmable, scientific calculator, it is pretty good. Input and output display are independent so you can use natural input and have decimal output. It is easy to use overall. Mine has no persistent state so if it times out and turns off it comes back cleared. These are neat calculators and very inexpensive.
Clickety Click
You gotta go with my #1, the TI-36x Solar. It's ACT and SAT allowed so if anyone has a problem with it, they're making it up.
For High School and early College degrees, knowing the basics helps later work when working with the more advanced tools. After learning (and being able to know) the basics then move into the more advanced tools. Both are needed. Generally when working on complex systems it's easiest to understand when it can be broken down into clear, demarcated segments. Overall it's complex but each individual segment is made up of basic understandable ideas. That way you don't need to look at everything all at once. This is the way much of networking works using the ISO reference model. Knowing the basics helps when you need to fall back
It's the difference between knowledge and understanding. Our society often fails to value the latter, since it is not immediately useful in the short-term and requires a wise long-view to appreciate. This is very much to our collective detriment.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Because somebody has to know how to build the calculator in the first place or you'll just end up kidnapping other people's children.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
That's what I used during high school (when all the other kids bought the TI-30 recommended by the school).
And it was still good enough for my maths degree, including some EE courses.
Derivatives, integrals, matrixes, dec->hex->oct->bin conversions, fractions, equation solver(linear, quadratic, cubic), complex numbers, plus all the standard trig functions... Tons of features for a "cheap" scientific calculator. I don't know about certification exams but many classes that banned programmable calculators allowed me to use this and being able to check my derivatives was great. I have the older EL-W516B, which was less than $15 at Target, the newer models still cost less than $20 dollars. It's no TI-89, but it offers a lot of bang for the buck. By the way, it's not RPN like the HP48.
I'm a big fan of the Casio fx-300 series. These days I'm using the fx-300MS, purchased at Staples, etc., for $10. http://www.staples.com/Casio-FX-300MS-Plus-Scientific-Calculator/product_403857 It's fine for scientific and engineering calculations, and although I'd prefer a programmable calculator, those aren't allowed for exams, and therefore aren't widely sold in stores. I have enough of the fx-300s around so there's always one at hand wherever I am, at home, at work, or at the bench. They must also be good enough for my scientific friends as well, because often when I'm in someone else's lab I see one lying around, and think I forgot and left my own there, only to discover, no, it's not mine.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/wp34s/ also available from a couple of shops.
More features and capabilities than any non-graphing calculator (and more than most of them too).
And a comprehensive manual: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/wp34s/doc/Manual_wp_34s_3_1.pdf?r=http%3A%2F%2Fsourceforge.net%2Fprojects%2Fwp34s%2Ffiles%2Fdoc%2F&ts=1384657939&use_mirror=softlayer-dal
The official list is here.
Made the best calculator.
I used the HP-35s on the Civil PE exam, and it worked great. Has three lines in the stack, the RPN that you know and love on the HP-48, and plenty of build-in equations. No matter what calculator you decide to use, I recommend putting your normal calculator away for a few months prior to the exam and force yourself to use the exam approved one, this will greatly increase your speed with the new calculator.
There is a jerk just like you at my job. I'll ask coworkers for their opinion on a particular tool, and he has to but in and say, "You can just Google for the tool and find hundreds of them for sale." I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion, and usually specific to the type of work we do. Part of "growth" is just not knowing what is the most popular choice, but knowing the criteria people use when selecting a tool. And just like that jerk coworker, guys like you will complain how such requests for opinion and discussion waste your time by making you do other people's work for them, yet you have no problem spending way more time whining about wasting time than you would with actually moving on and doing whatever makes your time so important.
You want people to speak up, and not sugar coat things for the purpose of "inoffensiveness"? Well, the did, by down modding such garbage. You want to value honest expression over phony appearance, yet bitch when it turns out people disagree with you.
HP-35s. Not as good as the original HP-35 u some respects, but plenty usable:
http://www.amazon.com/HP-F2215AA-ABA-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B000TDRHG8
If you're coming from an HP48, get an HP35S. All old-timey key feel and RPN goodness you're used to for ~$50, brand new.
For High School and early College degrees, knowing the basics helps later work when working with the more advanced tools. After learning (and being able to know) the basics then move into the more advanced tools. Both are needed. Generally when working on complex systems it's easiest to understand when it can be broken down into clear, demarcated segments. Overall it's complex but each individual segment is made up of basic understandable ideas. That way you don't need to look at everything all at once. This is the way much of networking works using the ISO reference model. Knowing the basics helps when you need to fall back
It's the difference between knowledge and understanding. Our society often fails to value the latter, since it is not immediately useful in the short-term and requires a wise long-view to appreciate. This is very much to our collective detriment.
This.
And with that in mind, I'd suggest a #2 pencil.
If that's too much work, I;d suggest a slide rule.
Someone has to build the calculators.
Use a sliderule
Thanks. I can obviously read Amazon reviews and such. However, I felt that the /. community probably had tastes more similar to my own, vs a bunch of kids taking algebra in high school/etc.
TI36 solar is an excellent choice. All the functionality with very little extra. Look for a model that has the scientific notation button (EE) as the primary function. Some have it this way, while most have it as a second function. If you use this a lot, and I suspect you do, you'll find it much more convenient to not constantly push the 2nd button.
Great warrior...hrmph! Wars not make one great.
If you do RPN then there is
no option to use a TI calculator.
I wish HP would revisit the older HP-21 just add
a modern display perhaps an E-ink display or
pixelqi.com technology display.
To me the most interesting idea would
be a USB link not too different than the
BeagleboneBlack where you can interact
with a web browser (and charge the batteries).
Plug the USB link and the calculator keyboard and
display are fully mirrored. Unplug it to take into
a test. To qualify for a test it would need a serious
reset button that does the right thing.
In this case the calculator could be as full featured
as the HP41cv or the HP-48 and beyond.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Oh my that was a terrible episode.
Because the programmable calculators can do more than just math.
That is why they are EVIL and must be FEARED as the tools of Satan that they are! Only witches use them. BURN THE WITCHES!
I took two bottom of the line TI-30s ($9.99) and my slide rule (in 1997 or 1998). There's nothing on the FE or PE exam that needs anything other than basic calculations: trig functions, etc. You could quite easily do it with a decent slide rule: it's not like you need 8 digits of accuracy. Either you know which equation to use, and you know what steps are in the solution, or you don't. The "wrong" answers are all the typical screwups (b/a instead of a/b kind of stuff).
However.. since you're used to an HP with RPN.. I'd strongly suggest finding another HP to use. Taking the test is enough of a mental challenge you don't want to be dorking around with your calculator trying to remember how to x^y instead of y^x
what the fuck kind of second rate piece of shit school lets you use calculators on a test?!
Well, if the government agency that defines the rules for this test wasn't stuck in the 50s, that might be an option...
Yes they can, but is that a problem?
When I was in school, my math classes required the use of a graphing calculator (it was a private school, so they required students get either a TI-81 or TI-85). I discovered the TI Basic features and thought that I could ensure myself high test scores by simply writing programs that could solve all the types of problems that would be on the test--this wasn't illegal, provided we wrote our own programs. The first few times I did this, I fully intended to use them during the test, but I found that it was usually just quicker to solve the problem myself, though I'd occasionally check my answer using my program. It was basically impossible for me to instruct the calculator on how to solve the problem without fully learning how to do it myself. And it became clear to me that simply writing a program was the best method for me to study for tests. Prior to that, I would cram before the test and sometimes it would be sufficient and sometimes it wouldn't. But in writing the program, I could very easily tell when I was done studying and it took far less time than the traditional method. And, unlike cramming, programming was fun!
From the interest that I gained in programming TI Basic, I decided to take an intro to CS class the summer before my freshman year of college. That led to my majoring in CS and the fulfilling, enjoyable and well-paid profession that I've had for the past ~15 years.
I'm very grateful that my math teachers in high school didn't see things they way that you do.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I have a pretty nifty abacus that I've tricked out to do cartesian vectors. Polar mod is in the works. Kickstarter for it coming soon.
Speaking of technology and advancement... you know, I watch Star Trek shows. I see that there are generally NO fat chicks. Truly this is an advanced civilization!
I use a Casio FX-260 Solar for these sorts of things. It has all your basic scientific functions, plus a nice statistics package. It doesn't have complex numbers or base conversions though. Still, for $10.00, it's not half bad!
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
So long as you had to write the programs yourself, that is fine. I'm more concerned about professional-style exams where there is a mix of math questions and questions where you are expected to recall the answer from memory.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Get a Casio FX115ES-Plus. Does every-useful-thing a graphing calculator can with a $16 price tag.
I have 2 Casio FX-115ESPlus calcs, and I use them all the time. One at my desk, one in my toolbox. I think I paid $12.99 for them, and they are available everywhere.
I like RPN, but the Casio textbook entry input works very well, and comes in handy when I have more important things on my mind.
www.casio.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/Fraction_%26_Scientific/FX-115ESPLUS/
They also rank very highly for accuracy.
http://www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/forensics.htm
voidware.com/calcs/torturetest.htm
I would be astounded to find, if they forbid certain models/features, that they do not have a whitelist of allowed models. THAT's where you should start your product research, not here, not with a vague, un-actionable question.
And Oh, By The Way, to echo another posters tongue in cheek remark, if you are in a scientific field, you really should know how to use a sliderule, even in these days. There ain't no batteries on a slide rule to run out, or be unavailable, nor are you ever likely to ever take a test where the use of one is forbidden.
-Red
I have heard of a thing, they call it a mind. Sure, they are a dime a dozen, and normally do not perform anything but the most mundane tasks. However, there are upgrade processes that one can perform on them that will allow even the most common mind to do amazing things!
That's the same thing my instructor said. You'll either get an A or an F, so If you're gonna trust your exam to a program, I'm sure you will understand the problem and test the program, and that will be the best study guide you could ever have.
As a bonus I got to check everyone else's tests (every one was different)
Cheers
The problem is that if highly-programmable calculators are permitted, test-prep companies like Kaplan will develop programs ostensibly for practice that would be based on reverse-engineered tests, change the test from measuring who is capable of handling this kind of engineering to who's capable of buying the "study materials" from Kaplan.
I can tell you, in the real world, I do not necessarily have access to documentation to do my technical job, I have to interpret what I see in front of me based on what I know and what I know how to do, not based on what I plug in to a device for an answer. I need to own the knowledge and the skills, not be in a position to constantly look them up for reference.
Once I've demonstrated an ability to know what skills need to be applied to a given situation, then it's not unreasonable to allow me to use tools, because I've already demonstrated that I understand what I am doing. That's why we have calculators in education in the first place, we stop doing multiplication, division, and trig after we've proven that we know how to do those.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I'm more concerned about professional-style exams where there is a mix of math questions and questions where you are expected to recall the answer from memory.
Well, those are just poorly made to begin with.
If a math test can be easily defeated by a mere calculator, I don't think it's a test that tests for anything important, anyway. Math is not just a rote memorization exercise, but sadly, many (including schools and colleges) treat it that way. It's sad, but I think most tests are so poorly made.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
It was good enough to get Jim Lovell back from the moon, dammit.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Get a triumph adler. If it's still not welcomed, then try a slide rule.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
There is a jerk just like you at my job. I'll ask coworkers for their opinion on a particular tool, and he has to but in and say, "You can just Google for the tool and find hundreds of them for sale." I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion, and usually specific to the type of work we do. Part of "growth" is just not knowing what is the most popular choice, but knowing the criteria people use when selecting a tool. And just like that jerk coworker, guys like you will complain how such requests for opinion and discussion waste your time by making you do other people's work for them, yet you have no problem spending way more time whining about wasting time than you would with actually moving on and doing whatever makes your time so important.
You want people to speak up, and not sugar coat things for the purpose of "inoffensiveness"? Well, the did, by down modding such garbage. You want to value honest expression over phony appearance, yet bitch when it turns out people disagree with you.
Amen! Where are my mod points when I need them?
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Did you try Google?
Given that you like your 48, you might want to look at the details of the allowed calculator lists for the specific tests you have in mind and see which other HP RPN calculators would fit the bill.
The 35s is allowed on a number of tests where fancier calculators aren't, including the NCEES. Not the cheapest, but capable. Its support for polar complex numbers covers what you seem to be asking for.
It's the successor to the 33s, which had an odd keyboard but was otherwise ok, which in turn was the successor to the 32S/32SII. Those are still quite capable calculators if you find one around. Enough people considered the 42S to be the best calculator ever made that it goes for absurd prices on ebay.
While they in theory test your problem solving and experience in a field, in fact they tend to be filled with memorization of minutia and lots of "gotcha" questions. Hence a calculator that can store notes in memory isn't allowed. Some don't allow calculators period because the ability to do base-2 math in your head is somehow important by their logic.
What it comes down to is that writing a good skills test is hard, and doing a computerized one is nearly impossible. So instead they make it hard through other means, namely memorization and trick questions.
A Sharp EL-546 (x) where (x) is the current version. The version I'm staring at is "W". Only very slightly programmable, (Ok, you can store quite a few formulas with variables that can be A,B,C,D,E,F,X,Y,M). All of your (hyperbolic)(arc)sine/cosine/tangent, exponent/log/root functions, polar to rectangular conversions, permutations, combinations, statistics, decimal/hexidecimal/binary/octal/pental conversions, plus 44 metric conversions, and 52 physical constants. It uses direct algebraic input (enter functions as you see them, not as some calculators want them), had dual power (dead batteries in the exam won't be a problem), its pretty rugged, and costs about $15. I used something like it for both Electronics Engineering and Computer Science.
I used the HP-35s on both the FE and PE electrical exams, and also by chance on the American ham radio license tests. There are some legitimate gripes about it out there, but it's excellent for quickly getting answers on complex math (complex as in sqrt(-1)) problems, and there is a 2x2 and 3x3 equation solver built in. dB calculations are also pretty quick, just due to the speed of RPN. That covers about 99% of the difficult calculations you'd be likely to see on the PE electrical exam, for example.
For the PE, by the time you account for application fees and money for study materials, a second HP-35s as a backup was a no-brainer.
Good luck!
Sounds like you want RPN. The HP-35s is still sold. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000TDRHG8
Under 10$ in Radio Shack. Deg/Rad/Grad. statistics. nPr and nCr. R -> P and P->R, sin, cos, tan, arcsin, arccos, arctan, sinh, cosh, tanh, arctsinh, arccosh, arctanh, 18 levels of parenthesis, log, ln, exp, 10^(x), 1/x, sqrt, x^2, x^y, x^(1/y). All solar no batteries. Good softkeys. M+, M-, Sto/ MR. Don't know the model num because it is at work, and I am home.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
$1 scientific calculators with trig functionality. Tada.
...all of the requested features:
It's the Sharp ELW516XBSL 12-Digit 4-Line 535-function Scientific Calculator
"Sharp - Scientific - Desktop - Solar Powered"
"Performs 535 statistical, trigonometric and other functions. WriteView technology displays formulas as written in textbooks. DAL (Direct Algebraic Logic) makes it easy to enter formulas into the calculator. Multi-line playback and editing function. Nine independent memories and four programmable keys. Ability to solve three simultaneous equations, two variable statistic functions and fraction calculations. Permitted for use on AP Chemistry, AP Physics, PSAT/NMSQT, SAT I, SAT II, Math IC & Math IIC tests."
Also See: https://www.mylambton.ca/Math_Physics/Sharp_EL-W516_WriteView/
Seems to be the accepted standard for just about any tests. If it's allowable, then you shouldn't have any problems with your HP48 being accepted.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Real Calc Plus on Android.
Get your free Dropbox account with 2 GB Free storage!
I suppose that's the difference between now and ~20 years ago. Back then, the TI-81 had no way to load a program apart from typing it in manually. The TI-85 had a data cable, but that only allowed a program/data to be transferred between two TI-85s. If the calculator had simpler ways to load programs, there would have been huge potential for abuse. But we had to write the programs ourselves.
And it really isn't possible to write a program to perform a task without truly understanding it. It's a lesson that I learned during the course of my CS education. Whenever I've struggled to write code, it means that I haven't asked enough questions and I don't understand what I'm writing to the necessary level of detail. The challenge of writing code for a living isn't the writing part...writing code is easy. The challenge, when working on something really difficult, is asking yourself and others the right questions to solidify your understanding of what needs to be coded.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I had a basic Casio (until my daughter made off with it) that sat on my desk beside my TI-89. For quick calculations I much preferred the Casio with its large clear numbers and nicer buttons. Plus it did various higher mathematical things fairly well. The key though is to read the manual as doing somethings such as working with polynomials was just weird.
I think that I will go buy another as I do miss it.
Get an HP 28S. It's the same processor and software as the HP 48S, just with a slower CPU, less memory, and a smaller display. I've never been denied my 28S in an exam, and if you're ever questioned just point to where it's stamped (C) 1986 HEWLETT-PACKARD.
Some of my teachers said the same about cheat sheets. You will do your best to create one and try to fit all the information on a small piece of paper. Which means you basically learned all the material if you only need a little bit of a memory boost from a cheat sheet to finish the exam.
In later eduction we had open-book exams where you could take your books to the exam.
demonstrates the bankruptcy of contemporary education.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
it might be old then you.
THIS.
And it became clear to me that simply writing a program was the best method for me to study for tests.
It is. Unfortunately too many people think that simply copying a program is the best method.
The converse is that you'll still end up with the popular tools if you ask people what their preferred tools are and why, because they all bought the popular tools and only have experience with the popular tools. You may not want just a list of names, but essentially that's what you get. The people you ask will just regurgitate the selling points to you. That's why marketers get paid quite handsomely. They're not just selling to the people who read/watch the ads, they're also selling to you.
The "do your own homework" complaint is justified and important, because people who ask everybody's opinion often do so without regard for the inherent tradeoff: After all, it's not their own time they're wasting. The negative feedback is worth the time. As someone who values the opinion of other people, you should have no problem seeing why.
And it really isn't possible to write a program to perform a task without truly understanding it.
Sure it is. It would be trivial to write a program to perform certain calculations without truly understanding why it (meaning the formula) works. For instance, the fact that you can write a little program that uses the Pythagorean theorem doesn't mean you have a deep--or even shallow--understanding of why the Pythagorean theorem works.
The TI-85 had a data cable, but that only allowed a program/data to be transferred between two TI-85s.
My recollection is that the cable included with the calculator only allowed calculator to calculator syncing, but that for about $30 you could buy the computer to calculator cable (and software) that conveniently allowed you to copy all your data to or from a computer... very useful if you had to demonstrate that your calculator was wiped for an exam.
and give it a command-line / greenscreen interface. Make it run in a shell on your android phone. And add an output "Copyright Rich0 1989" to the "- - version" option...
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I've made a sad realization that my TI-89 Titanium will become totally useless after I graduate. 99% of the time I'll be around a desktop computer where I'll be able to use Matlab, which is far superior to the TI-89, and another 0.99% of the time I'll definitely have access to my tablet which has Octave installed on it, and the remaining 0.01% of the time I wouldn't be carrying my TI-89 around with me anyway.
It's not really an answer to the Ask Slashdot question, but I don't see why one would want to use a non-approved programmed calculator.
The point of a calculator during exams is that you have a single tool with well defined capabilities, so as not to get an unfair advantage above students using a different brand of tool. For actual (professional) engineering calculations you will use a computer with decent programming tools (matlab, python, C/C++, or whatever your favorite is). In my 22 years of university (physics), scientific research, and industrial engineering, I have never felt the need for a fancy calculator. Nowadays I have RealCalc (Android app, clone of the decades-old Casio FX-8x line of non-programmable calculators) if I need a quick calculation during a meeting and a computer (combined with pen and paper) for everything else.
If your exams require that you have a graphing calculator, you'll probably need one. But I've never seen them used around me (R&D department counting a few thousand mechanical engineers).
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
I'm using the HP41CX iphone app. It's great! http://alsoftiphone.com/i41CXplus/
Yes, but the first result is this post!!!
I don't ask my coworkers because I need a list of names, I ask them because I want their opinion.
Would you ask their "opinion" on which is best, Coke or Pepsi? McDonalds vs. Burger King? Ford v.s Chevy? At the end of the day all questions about which is "best" are equally useless.
I've never seen an "Ask Slashdot" which was a good, answerable question. There's always a ton of missing info.
For example:
His main calculator (which he "appreciates") is an HP uses RPN. Is RPN a requirement for the cheap one? We don't know, that makes this question impossible to answer. Any answer we may give is no more useful than Amazon reviews.
Will he ever use it for anything other than this exam? If not, it makes no difference whatsoever what he buys. Any cheap scientific calculator from a major manufacturer will have pretty much the same set of trig functions and $20 is cheap enough to give it to a charity shop afterwards.
No sig today...
The Physics Dept at Exeter Univ. (UK) publishes lists of simple scientific calculators that students can (and can't) use in exams:
http://newton.ex.ac.uk/handbook/PHY/Calculators.html
Their criteria are sufficiently similar to your requirements that it might be useful for ruling candidates in/out.
Nice theory. At my school, the cheat sheets often had example answers from previous years' tests, saved in cabinets carefully kept at their frats. It drove me nuts tha they had access to those previous tests.
Post and Pocket made excellent calculators when I was in college. Not sure whether they still do. They were called slide rules and were universally welcome in tests. Try it, you'll like it.
The converse is that you'll still end up with the popular tools if you ask people what their preferred tools are and why...
OK, so I'll offer something different.
During my first year at uni, I used to own an HP-48G+ which I loved for its nice keypad and the RPN interface, but the actual device was hopelessly unreliable and had an unwelcome tendency to let me down by throwing hissy-fits during assessments. I eventually got around that particular limitation by replacing it with a TI-89, which (although lacking keypad quality and RPN) was, and still is, a vastly superior device on many levels.
But since this doesn't answer the OP's question, here's my take on it in the light of years of experience since my university studies...
The best calculator for examinations is: NONE AT ALL.
You will get much more kudos for arriving at any kind of solution (however incomplete) if you can show how you started from first principles. Also, you might actually remember how to use these skills years later if you do this.
I would like to be able to say this is what I did, but it would be a lie. I was not a brilliant maths student, since I relied too much on gadgets to help me through assessments. However, I have since revisited the subject and learned how to do it with more insight, and now find a certain pride in being able to "do" maths with no more hardware than a sheet of paper, a pencil and my brain.
Oh, and FWIW, although I still have my TI-89, most of the routine mechanical calculations I perform these days are done on the RealCalc Plus app on my phone.
bah I modrated redundant.
In college (15 years ago), my scientific calculator was a Sharp EL-509 (now succeeded with the EL531; $10 from Amazon) Unlike most scientific calculators, the '509 did order of operations automatically so you didn't have to convert your input into "calculator order" ahead of time. Really, it gave me the most-needed features of a graphing calculator, but in a form-factor that professors always let me use.
For my EE classes, the real benefit was not having to convert between vector and polar coordinates prior to problem input. I could input my problem in whatever coordinate form I had it in without having to go through tedious trig operations, which greatly sped up solving problems during exams (or homework, for that matter). With exams heavy on those conversions, I always finished the tests first.
Steampunk away. Preferably clockwork. Stop being lazy. Extra points for steam, solar, urine-powered or digestion-powered. "Nervous-foot-tapping" powered is an obviously disregarded source of energy.
Dynamic feedback, of course. With nitinol, constantan (or precision resistances) and diferential gears (eccentric, and maybe even elliptical ones). Don't forget the tiny bell. Maybe a little whistle, too. In the deluxe model. :) A chicken or kazoo sound for errors?
There's also that German small potlike mechanical calculator engineers used to admire. What was their name, again?
Just being a prepper is already risqué.
If you are used to RPN, stick with RPN. That's the mot important advice I can give you
For test, i always used the HP 32s or the good old HP 11c
Someting like the 32s is close to your 48, so you will be using it intuitively and fast
Learn to use your brain and you won't have to second guess what is and is not allowed.
Since you're question is vague and worthless, try it out some time.
We all got the calc-calc cables with our TI-82s but only the teachers had the calc-serial cable and were reluctant to lend it out. Then someone in my class bought one, and we just used his.
I would just argue who ever is proctoring the test, let them see your calculator, let them clear it's memory and then let you use your calculator. On an interesting side note I wonder if it would be possible to make a normal "small" form factor calculator with a programming feature but that looks completely Innocent.
I have one HP 35s and it is even more useful than the HP 50G
The first will be the most expensive and the second will cost much less.
Those were good enough for me and my peers when I was taking exams (in fact, that's all we were allowed to use). Now get off my lawn!
I took maths exams before equation solving calculators were commonplace. I had the quadratic equation formula programmed into my graphing calculator permanently taking up one of its 10 memories. And, yes, I can still regurgitate the equation at will 20 years later.
(usually young life)???
At the PE exam, the proctors are usually retired PEs and the like. They'd recognize an older calculator in a second (Oh, yeah, that's the one that I got to replace my HP-45.. Now the 45 was great, because it replaced my Kurta, and it was a lot quieter than the Marchand in the office)
Pros: No batteries, no TEMPEST emissions, no NSA snooping...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
PE exam is open book (people drag entire pallets full into the exam, including 2 drawer file cabinets). Fundamentals of Engineering exam is "open NCEES" book, which is about 50-60 pages of formulas, tables, etc.
I was quite impressed with the quality of the PE and FE exams. They did NOT rely on trick questions. What they did require was solutions that required at least 2 steps in the process. And you had to really know what the appropriate analysis /solution approach was, because there isn't enough time to "derive from first principles". Either you know how to use a Moody diagram for pipes, or you don't, and since that's only a piece of the puzzle, if you don't you're screwed. (Typical problem: The penstock is cast iron and 1 meter in diameter. The reservoir surface is at an altitude of 1000 meters, while the inlet to the penstock is 40 meters below the water surface. The power house is 1 km away at an altitude of 921 meters. Using the chart in Figure n, giving generator performance vs flow and head, what is the expected electrical power output?)
You get about 2 minutes per problem on average.
The hard part is that they are insane on function placement, but you can not beat Casio for a good high end calculator for cheap.
I just wish someone would re make the HP programmers calculator. I need the Binary/hex/octal stuff more than anything else and all the calculators today just slap it on as a last minute extra buried in the settings.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Argue? Are you kidding? Have you never taken a licensing or other high stakes exam? They have a list of approved model numbers, and a freaking huge table with a pile of calculators that have been confiscated. There's no arguing.
Here on Slashdot a few months/years ago there was a whole discussion about how you can write software for the programmable TIs that emulates the "memory clear" function, and with a clever combination of keypresses, the memory comes back.
There's no negotiating at these tests. There's 1000 of you lined up to get in at 6AM, and there's no time for calculator negotiation. They check your bags and boxes, and check your calculator against the published "approved list". If it matches, you get to take it. If it doesn't it goes on the "confiscated" table.
Everyone wears one these days.
HP-32S or HP-32Sii
Should be allowed into any certification exam. Made until the early 2000's, so it should be relatively cheap and readily available. Will last the rest of your life if you don't do something stupid.
Engineering cred. I bought mine used on ebay a couple of decades ago and it's still selling for as much or more than what I paid for it.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
... just in case the exam facility is hit with an EMP, take your slide rule along.
My ti 89 was not allowed on the mechanical engineering PE exam, so I used the Casio. It's a pretty awesome little machine. It can store a lot of variables, and solve equations numerically (which is useful because it means you don't have to rearrange medium sized equations before solving them).
To those who are complaining about organizations not allowing programmable calculators: the main reason why the ncees has this requirement is to prevent people from exfiltrating portions of the exam.
Because sometimes you have to do the math right now and get it right. If you have 30 minutes (or an hour, or a day - the problem will take longer to solve on a computer than you have to go back to the office and run your analysis) to make a life or death decision, I pray you have the ability to do math in your head, and do it right.
You laugh, but some of us make these calls as part of our career. We have to know the math, the formulas, and how entire systems interact. When we get it wrong, people die. We're professional engineers.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
You guys sure spend a lot of effort to find ways of avoiding answering a question and instead find a way to whine about it instead. This isn't about filling an exact specification for some specific product under contract. Leaving things kind of vague lets people weigh in on what they use and why they think it might matter or not. If people give good suggestions that are not RPN, then maybe it is not critical enough to be a requirement. As said in a previous post, half the point of such discussion is to see why other people made the decisions they did, not to find a product that meets a specific checklist. Additionally, others are reading this and might have slightly different needs, so what would be the point of putting an Ask Slashdot up with exact specifications?
Would you ask their "opinion" on which is best, Coke or Pepsi? McDonalds vs. Burger King? Ford v.s Chevy? At the end of the day all questions about which is "best" are equally useless.
You seem to be assuming coworkers' or other's opinions are just mindlessly taken at face value. You might as well say no opinion should ever be asked for on the internet because there will be people with stupid, regurgitated opinions on any topic. You still have to filter, analyze and otherwise put thought into responses, but you will get a different spread of responses than just trying to sift through product reviews.
It is a rather simple question, yet people try hard to misunderstand it so they have an excuse to complain. And we end up with people both complaining it is too narrow and hence is not about doing someone's work for them instead of fostering discussion, while others complain it is too open-ended and think the questions should only be asked if they can be answered with a simple, single choice.
I don't say none at all. Suppose you need the cosine of 36.87Â? yes, some people will recognize that as a 3-4-5 triangle, but what if it's the one thing you won't recognize?
Yes, it's better to have a simple scientific calculator there, if allowed. For the last 15 years, my father would buy cheap $8 scientific calculators, and sell them at cost to physics students who needed them. Nowadays, you'll probably get the same thing at Walmart.
The key here is: reliable, readable, and that you get it a month or so before your test and use it exclusively for that month, so that you don't waste thought trying to find the minus key.
As for vector calculus, I'd think you should know that well enough to use it. Last time I used it was for an rfi on a bridge misdesign, to show that two surfaces were not perpendicular to each other. The designing engineers--one of whom was a PE, and another of whom is now a PE, teased me about it, but it was the shortest, simplest way to prove the point to an engineer, and they did respect it. Key here, same as with the calculator, is that you don't use stuff you're not extremely familiar with, and that means lots of practice.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
You just assume no one is capable of controlling their own actions and must do what other people tell them. I guess asking bad questions forces people to waste their time? If people don't think it is worth the time to discuss the answer, they can just move on. How does it save time to put as much effort into bitching as would go into a real answer, especially when others have no problem with giving a real answer?
And how do you expect someone to do their homework, at the same time being unable to sort through responses to their questions to separate "selling points" from actual opinions? Either people are capable of putting through into reading other's opinion, in which case both a discussion like this and reading random reviews will have some, slightly overlapping utility, or they are incapable of using neither.
casio calculator fx 85wa
-Separate result and equation displays
-does polar conversion
-converts base 10 to whatever to what hex, binary etc.
Used through engineering school and work.
-regards, a recent PEng
This is how I got through an economics course for engineers so easily. I programmed present value, future value, and annual payment equations into my TI-85. When I was doing the homework and taking exams, all I had to do was enter the variables and hit the button. When I took the PE exam, I used a TI-30-II.
I started to agree with With Mr LMGTFY. Your comment has really changed my perspective on requests for opinion on slashdot... I applaud your open thinking,.
You spent a lot of time coming up with this crap when the correct answer is "No, I don't have any ideas on good calculators". And guess what...you don't even have to reply...we don't care if you don't have any good ideas.
Most Slashdotters who clicked to read the comments don't want to hear your rants about lazyness or offloading problems, and that is why you are modded at Troll. I clicked on the thread because I was hoping to hear about something cool...you fucked that up for me.
I too, don't have any ideas for the OP....I am hoping somebody else does. Get a life and quit telling people they are lazy...there is no future in that for you.
Would you ask their "opinion" on which is best, Coke or Pepsi? McDonalds vs. Burger King? Ford v.s Chevy? At the end of the day all questions about which is "best" are equally useless.
If the person being asked has some level of self-knowledge, and the asker has some knowledge about the responder, then the answers to all are useful. That you are incapable of understanding does not mean the answer is useless to everyone. Unless you assume you are the one and only smartest person on the planet.
Learn to love Alaska
Hear, hear! So far I've managed to avoid having these coworkers, but I've often run into such things with people waxing eloquent about something and upon asking for more information they say "simply Google for X". The problem is if I type things into Google there is a very good chance I'll see lots of options which are related, but not the same thing. Perhaps they used extra terms to direct them to the one thing in the group that was good. In such cases giving a URL works far better.
Thanks. I can obviously read Amazon reviews and such. However, I felt that the /. community probably had tastes more similar to my own, vs a bunch of kids taking algebra in high school/etc.
See, that's where you went horribly wrong. For one thing there are members on here that still swear by slide rules (I am on the fence on that one). Some will point you at calculators that would still be verboten, and then there's guys like me that have enough math to just use something like this because square roots are hard to get right in your head. You should be able to do trig without the SIN, COS and TAN buttons. Remember the Unit Circle? If you came a to geek website to ask for help with trig and conversions from a calculator and didn't expect a good amount of heckling then you should have stuck with Google.
At 11$, it should fit the bill; made for scientists and engineers, should pass its own exams with 240 functions. The manual is here: http://h20628.www2.hp.com/km-ext/kmcsdirect/emr_na-c03519340-1.pdf Why recommend it? I own it and it does the job, if the problem is really for a calculator :)
Fuck doing math by hand, thats what computers are for!
I mean seriously, lets give everyone a TI-89 and teach them to use it!
Even better, make students learn a legitimate math software, like MathCAD or Maple or something
Why hold ourselves back?
Spoken like a person completely useless at math. You have to show your work by hand so the person grading the test knows that you know what you're doing. Yes, computers are good for crunching numbers and giving results, but we also need to know the numbers are correct. That comes from doing a lot of it by hand or verifying with different algorithms. The main problem with quantum computing right now is how do we verify the answers to these ridiculously large problems if all we have is one working model, D-Wave for instance? We want smarter mathematicians not ones more reliant on computers to solve problems. You will eventually get to where no one has the competency to do long division without help from a machine. That's not a good thing!
And Timmy strikes again by not posting an Ask Slashdot story to the Ask Slashdot section. Hey Timmy! They put those sections there and allow readers to filter by section for a reason. Quit being a fucking tool and post the stories properly. In other words, do your job.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Do people still use calculators?
no, I don't have a sig
The Sharp El-406 series has been around for 20+ years. Trig, other bases, and a backspace. Current model is probably EL-406C, but I don't remember.
For me — reliable and familiar.
For you — familiar to standardized test proctors.
The light hearted heckling about using slide rules later on varies from humorous to insightful. Some of the discussion by people about not needing calculators, or about the often debated issue on using calculators for testing can also be insightful. That is rather different than someone being an asshole because they purposely misunderstand what is being done here and/or because they value complaining more than actually adding to the conversation or even value it more than their own time they could save by ignoring the story.
I had a TI-36 back in college ... once time, the classroom was so dark for the test (I think the teacher had something on the overhead) ... that the calculator wouldn't turn on. It made having a solar calculator kinda lame.
Luckily, the power needed to keep it on was less than the power to turn it on initially, so I was able to shine the flashlight on it once, and it stayed on for the rest of the test. But it was still pretty annoying.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
A TI-36x Pro is the calculator you are looking for. It has unit conversions, vector addition, and all the usual stuff. I've had mine for a couple years and it's never failed me. It has a four line display and a table button which is incredibly useful.
The light hearted heckling about using slide rules later on varies from humorous to insightful. Some of the discussion by people about not needing calculators, or about the often debated issue on using calculators for testing can also be insightful. That is rather different than someone being an asshole because they purposely misunderstand what is being done here and/or because they value complaining more than actually adding to the conversation or even value it more than their own time they could save by ignoring the story.
Or the time wasted not looking for a calculator and pouring over /. posts? Yeah, productive use of time. Or, was it about the whining and having to ask /. when their precious programmable calculator isn't allowed in a test? Which one was the better use of time?
People who find value in reading random discussions can do so at their leisure. Maybe you view it as noble to try to protect other people from deciding how to spend their time, but whatever. That wasn't the issue, which is instead the people who claim stupid online discussions are a waste of time via stupid online discussions.
neither its sugary water Burgerking better burgers not familiar with chevy but had a few fords and didn't miss them when they were gone.
Calculator had my current one 20+ years so out of production for a long time.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
That's a crib sheet not a cheat sheet you idiot.
Pics or It Didn't Happen
Hp 42. It is is a two line rpn calculator with most of the funtionality of the 48.
I recently took the FE exam and this was the best of all allowed calculators. It made some of the problems substantially faster to solve.
http://www.casio-usa.com/products/Calculators_%26_Dictionaries/Fraction_%26_Scientific/FX-115ESPLUS/
Interpolation, Polar-Rect, symbolic integration and differentiation, Root finding, and the option of symbolic interface.
It is not bad for $20 US at any Walmart.
No, you won't get more kudos for getting partial answers without a calculator. You're being graded against other students and they are using calculators; if you handicap yourself by not using a calculator you're likely not to do as well as the students who use them and your grade will suffer. In science and engineering you aren't graded on effort, you are graded on results.
Calculators are appropriate professional tools for many science and math tasks, though the requirement that you use a dumbed down one with no programming capability is artificial. Yes, I understand that the requirement is necessary to prevent cheating.