The fact that you can and should enter a sequence of buttons to get a QR code to verify if your casio is in fact a casio is wild
The only thing I ever used a scientific calculator for was pretending to pass math class while programming Drug Wars line by line for my entire junior year, then playing it my entire senior year. The teachers thought I was REALLY into math while also really sucking at it.
I used an HP RPM calculator through college. It could do cool stuff like graphing and solving equations. Very helpful for an engineering student, not so helpful later in life. I used that calculator until about a year ago when it died (got about 35 years from it). I didn’t use the super fancy stuff anymore, but for a scientific calculator it was pretty solid.
So when it broke, I had to find a replacement for a device that I’ve used for my entire life. Needless to say, I was kind of picky. I tried emulators, and newer TIs, and there’s a bunch of knockoff crap like the article points to. Only one made me happy. A silly little iOS app “PCalc” (it has an icon of “42”). It was like $5, runs on my phone, and honestly I probably should have switched decades ago.
I’m not associated with that app or the author or anything, just a recommendation for anyone old and stubborn like me - I know I’m not alone here with calculator attachment issues :)
The best part about using an RPN calculator (I also had an HP) was that if someone asked if they could borrow it, I could tell them that if they call do 1+1 and get 2 on it, they could use it. No one ever was successful.
RPN is great though, it’s so fast if you could quickly organize the order of operations.
Edit: RPN, not RPM.
There is Emu48, in Android at least.
Scientific calculators are an amazing invention that take pocket calculators from being merely basic arithmetic machines to being pocket computers that can handle everything from statistics to algebra.
I use the FOSS maxima on Linux and Android.
The Android version appears to be dead?!
The version on F-Droid works on my system.
checks
Looks like the F-Droid project hasn’t seen a new Android build in a decade, and Maxima has seen updates, but…I mean, it’s a pretty mature program. I have a newer version on desktop, but all the stuff I use was added in the first couple decades or so of its life.
EDIT: The git repo is here:
https://github.com/YasuakiHonda/Maxima-on-Android-AS
So I expect that if someone wanted to do builds of newer versions, they could.
But for perspective, the calculator that the article is talking about that the author liked is also a decade-old calculator.
Do ppl still use dedicated scientific calculators in the age of pocket computers?
Where I live, you can only bring dedicated calculators into the examination halls so yes.
Does your pocket computer have physical buttons?
I suppose it could, if you wanted to carry a foldable USB or Bluetooth keyboard or keypad.
That’s addressed in the video
