Greg O wrote:

"Spehro Pefhany" wrote in message
Those earlier ones *were* battery hungry. The 15C lasts a very
long time, except when a piece of heavy equipment holds some buttons
depressed for a month or two. :-)

The later ones, like the HP48 series, are much worse on batteries than
the earlier C ones. Probably 50 times worse in terms of current. They
go through a set of 3 AAA cells in no time. The others use much lower
capacity button cells and seem to last forever. I think HP must have
switched from their own ASICs to cheaper off-the-shelf technology.



My first calculator I bought for college was a TI-55, the old style, brown
door stop looking model. I bought batteries by the case! That sucker,
(literally), could eat a battery in one day of heavy use. That is when I
bought the HP. Best investment I ever made, as far as calculators go. I
remember buying the HP and tosing the TI-55 in the trash can during a class.
Two or three guys dug it out and were fighting over it!
Greg

Mike,

I use an older HP 11C Scientific, among some other vintage HP's and keep
it in a one quart clear plastic zip lock bag that I replace frequently.
Fold the bag round back and tape it. The reason for the affinity for HP
is that I like RPN and the calculator carries 12 places of accuracy,
whether you can see it on the readout or not.

If I want to lay out 127 divisions around a circle, each step is 2.83
degrees, but calculator will carry 2.83464566929 degrees to be added to
the 2.83 degrees. This very accurate number allows the error to be
distributed around the circle as best as you can read your dial.

Henry