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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 had to buy a HP 35S because my 50g wasn't allowed in some tests in my engineering school and I simply can't use a calculator that doesn't do RPN anymore.
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.
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.
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.
Stupid comment. The thing is that Google has become nearly unusable to find anything a bit more specialized, and in any case it does not give you an evaluation of fitness. Shopping site reviews are routinely censored or falsified in the first place. But I guess you main reason for not wanting to give an opinion is that you actually are not smart enough to have a well-founded one.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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
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!