Oh, okay. In that case, you just need the e[sup]x[/sup] button (diamond-x) or the “EE” button next to the 4 (e.g. 3E4 = 3 * 10[sup]4[/sup]), or more generally, the “^” button.
I use whatever one I grab from my desk. Students are always leaving calculators on their desks when they leave. If no-one claims an unmarked one in a couple of weeks, it goes into my collection. Since I teach Social Studies, my need for one is minimal, so I always have a few to lend out. Most are TI.
I used a TI-85 all through high school, with ZShell installed so I could play around with the assembler (and play better games than the TI Basic ones), but my favorite ever was my TI-92 (with the Plus module!) that I used in my college years – the first two, when I was in an engineering major. Saved my ass in calculus cause I could check my work symbolically. I also used the text editor quite extensively, because in 1997 / 98, PDAs were incredibly overpriced to be used as portable text editors. When I got home, I’d just send the text to the PC for editing.
I have absolutely no call for such a thing any more, because when I use a calculator, it’s at work so it’s the work-supplied ones for me – the Monroe 7130 (in ivory, of course). Doesn’t do very much, but it does it very well, 12 hours a day, 362 days a year, with replacement only every 3 - 4 years.
Are you sure? My sx has two slots for expansion.
Anyway, yeah, HP 48sx user here. Loved it (past tense because I’m not doing much math these days). Calculus in high school and through college. It always seemed a very straightforward calculator to me, and I don’t think I’d give it up.
In high school the ‘recommended’ calculators for calculus were TIs, so most everyone bought those. My dad works at IBM and an engineer friend of his sold him the HP for cheap. Another buddy of mine also had an HP from an engineer father of his. We were the only two in our class with HPs. In college there were a few more, but I think TI has/had an educational deal, so it seems to be the calculator of choice that folks buy for high school calculus.
I’ve got a TI-83+. It’s pretty good, but TI-BASIC sucks as an actual programming language. It’s fine for learning, but it takes forever to do anything useful on it.
When I take an online quiz for physics, I usually end up with some fairly complex number crunching to do, and since I never remember to bring my TI (or anything else) down with me, I have to figure out how to get it through Windows XP calculator, which sucks a lot. At the moment, I’m writing a better version.
You’re right. (And you made me go dig it up)…It’s a 48s.
And a big frikkin BRICK. Remember your first sleek cellphone? It’s a brick too. 
Still works, I bet these batteries are 5 years old!
HP15C here for most of my needs. 49G if I need graphing capabilities, but I really do despise its electric-blue shell. I want one in matte black, brushed metal, or something. I barely use the 49G anymore; all the engineering classes only require a scientific calculator, and all the math classes prohibit them.
I’ve been using RPN (on the same 15C) since I was 10; I actually can’t use a Toy Instrument (or equivalent). I spend more time re-entering things and starting over than actually doing the work. Lately one of the intro chem classes has decided to only allow a certain TI on exams; I’ve been wondering if I could file with the disability office to get a special exemption made. It’ll go untested; I took the class before they instituted that.
HP-15C. Bought it in 1984 and only changed the batteries once since then. RPN calculators are so much easier to use that I hate to use others. For checkbook use I bought a cheap HP model but didn’t check carefully, when I got home: Horrors! It had an equals button!
When I was on the high school math team, the calculator team used the HP 11c. Around 1991, they got new calculators (don’t remember which models), but I loved mine so much I “lost” it and had to pay for it (the math team coach was aware of this.) Cost me about $50 for a used calculator, IIRC. That thing is still sitting in front of me, still works, and has never had the battery replaced since I’ve had possession of it, and that includes the year or two prior to my taking permanent possession of it.
Plus, all the calculators you buy at the stores these days use the normal 5 + 5 = method of typing in the calculation. This one uses 5 <enter> 5 +. I don’t remember what that’s called, though.
Oh, I get what RPN stands for now. I didn’t get the correlation before.
I have a HP-10C and a HP-16C. I bought both of these around 1983. The 10C is your basic calculator with most of the functions you’ll ever need, but the 16C is the Computer Scientist model. It was just about the only pocket calculator at that time that could handle binary, octal, and hexadecimal data, plus it does all the bit-level manipulation functions that one needs if you’re doing some fancy-schmancy assembler programming.
How do you use RPN for more complex things, like finding integrals and such?
IIRC, you specificy the formula from the inside-out, press enter, tell the calculator what variable what you’re integrating for, optionally give boundaries, then tell it to integrate.
If it’s a symbolic equation, you’ll get back an equation…if it’s fully formed (no leftover variables) it’ll return a numerical result.
There is nothing you can do with a calculator that RPN can’t also do.
If you had:
(1-n)*(4^(y+3) +a) / Q cos (theta)
You’d do:
4 enter
y <enter>
3 +
SUP (note: that’s x^n)
a +
1 <enter>
n -
*
(note: this all takes care of the numerator)
Q <enter>
Theta
COS
*
/
Note the lack of parenthesis. You handle that yourself as you’re entering the data.
Wow. That’s ridiculously complicated.
Only the first time you see it. It forces you do handle equations from the deepest part out. There are hundreds of thousands of math and engineering folks that dig it.
I think it is complicated, too. Wouldn’t (y+3) be the deepest part of that equation? Why then is 4 the first thing entered?
Yup. the power key (now that I can look at the calculator) is y^x, The stack is:
4:
3:
2: (this would be y)
1: (this would be x)
4 is the first thing entered because I didn’t have the calculator with me, and havent touched it ‘in that way’ for, og, 17 years!
The equation would be entered as:
4 enter
Y enter
3 +
y^x
a +
1 enter
n -
*
Q enter
theta Cos
*
/
The final equation, as renedered on the stack is:
‘4^(y+3)+a)(1-N)/(QCOS(theta))’
dammit. there needs to be a ‘(’ at the beginning there.