The youngsters actually marvel. And when you show them the goods and they feel what it's like to press PHYSICAL BUTTONS, it's like going back in time.
The HP 12c's reverse Polish notation takes some time to figure out, but you can't go back once mastered.
HP has no equal!!!
>>The HP 12c’s reverse Polish notation takes some time to figure out, but you can’t go back once mastered.
RPN >> AOS
Just to post something that will be controversial for some, but it is TRUE!
I had a physics prof from England that would walk us through electromagnetics problems and when he'd get to the end it was a mess of an expression and he'd say " ... which resolves to .... approximately 37.57" and we'd follow along with out calculators and the answer would 37.55.
We asked him how this was possible. he said 'I convert it all to logarithms in my head and then it's just simple addition. Haven't you memorized all the basic logs for all the major constants like Pi, e, u0, boltzmans, etc and the digits 1-10?"
THAT guy was a rock star to the math nerds.
This! I use my HP 15C all the time. Reverse Polish is the only way to go. No parentheses, no equals signs, just start at the inside and work your way out.
I've had the 15C since 1985, and I dread the day it dies, because nobody makes a calculator with RPN now. Oh well, I've still got the old Pickett slide rule too, and log and trig tables in the CRC Handbook.
I've heard this dozens of times (in the 70s), however I've always observed extra steps.
And, for my RPN expert FRiends...
Invited (invited) <--/--> Corrections (corrections) course <--/-->of (of).