Thursday, August 26, 2010

HP-35s is a Pain in the Ass

The HP 35s: How do I hate thee, let me count the ways.
     1. Two keystrokes are requiired to turn it off. 
     2. Two keystrokes are required to recall a stored number.
     3. Too many functions require 3 keystrokes.
     4. It has more bells and whistles that a circus calliope.
     5. The users' manual is supplied on a CD.  A several hundred page manual on line cannot be read efficiently.  It is not possible to extract the section of interest.
     6. If a PC is required to read the manual one does not need the 35s.  One may have access to  packages such as Maple or Mathematica.  If not, MACSYMA is now a free download.
     7. It is inferior in ease of use to the HP 15c which it replaced.

The sole improvement over the HP15 is the display of the "y" register in addition to the "x" register,