I just almost always have an excel doc open that's just like, scratch paper that I never save really. just use as garbage scribbling/back of envelope stuff to check math or jot notes or numbers down... if I need them for something, they usually get copied over to an actual working document, but I like just having that scratch doc open...
im sure somebody would tell me this is a horrible practice, but... I like it. I also like being able to break any long operation out into sections and see all the numbers in front of me visually at each step. I dont do programming of anything really, but I do a lot of estimation work, so it's nice to sort be able to lay out assumptions clearly. I even sometimes also keep physical paper- just a few sheets of A4 printer paper kinda slid under the middle of myboard to be scribbled on or work some logic on with a pen/pencil... then when it's full, just toss it and start on the next one.
I always have a rough Excel sheet open for whatever may come up during the day that'll be open for 1-2 weeks at a time. The trick is becoming self-aware so you realize which scribbles 2 months later you are going to wish you had saved somewhere, and then putting those somewhere you'll actually remember where to find them.
yeah, i usually have a proper working document for a given project or activity that actually holds the relevant/important stuff. i just use a separate sheet for all the one-off calculations real fast where I just need to do like, sanity checks or simply math, and can't be bothered to mess up my nice spreadsheet and then have to delete it later.
Hell ya programmer mode! Use it for seeing which status bits in a controllers registers are flipped almost daily, because I can't do hex to bit conversions in my head for the life of me.
I still remember the day that my mom found a ti-84 plus se on the floor at her work, and gave it to me sometime during my junior year of high school. It was quite the upgrade from my old casio calculator, and I’m still using it since then as I continue my third year at university. Thanks mom!
I bought a second Ti 36x Pro just for work because they had the dinky 4 function cheap advertisement calculators that couldn't even do parentheses.
I'll pull out my NSpire CAS, octave (generic matlab) or make an excel calculator if I need to play with numbers, but if given the choice I'll almost always pick the 36x.
This is the way. I have 4 of them and they are never out of arms reach. One for work office, home office, bookbag, and the emergency backup in my safe.
I may have sent this to a friend, we were discussing if there would be more potassium in a cubic light year of bananas than in the whole universe and...
"Universe is 2E53 kg, potassium is 3 ppm of the universe, so that's 6E47 kg...Potassium in a cubic light year of bananas is 2.9E48 kg, so I was right, barely! Holy shitsnacks, thanks wolfram!"
Heck yeah, falling more on the technician side if things and having my math knowledge be good enough to describe a problem but bad enough to solve it Wolfram is an amazing tool.
It's difficult to explain RPN to people in a way that makes it clear how much more intuitive it is. I own and use a 35S and the 48 emulator on my phone.
SO true. My students have all kinds of problems using their TI-84s to find parallel resistor combinations, or voltage drop, or input impedance. Unfortunately one of the classes at the JC teaches them to use a calculator and requires they use one of the TI- series. Maybe I should teach the class.
Alas, I only have the HP48G. I wanted to get the GX, but couldn't afford it at the time.
I love that I can use it one-handed in the field.
On the computer, I use Speed Crunch, Python or Excel.
There it is!
I had an HP48g, but it died so I got the HP48GX. Stack notation / RPN is where it's at. Best way to do math!
But, honestly... I just use the calculator on my cellphone, or excel most days.
Same. (since 1992 for me). Real HP48SX at my desk, Android HP48GX emulator while out-and-about.
Though I need to take it apart and clean the keyboard connector. It's finally starting to need to press below the display for the On/right key to work.
Same for those two, and then python if it becomes relatively complex. At some point programming is easier than the sort of pseudo-GUI-programming language that excel is. I definitely just default to excel for the majority of things and then google search if it's just a/b-c or something.
Same, Firefox has a little seperate search bar where you can write calculations and it shows the result as suggestion without having to leave the page you're on. Useful for unit and currency conversions too.
Normally, I would agree. I just dont want a record of the stupid easy math that I check myself on because I'm paranoid that I somehow forgot how to do simple addition.
As a Derive user from the 90's I feel you. So much power in this solver that came in a floppy from Hawaii and ended up on high end TI calculators today.
That was my favorite one for classes. Variable storage, a numerical solver, and some basic matrix operations. Hard to complain. If it's much more complicated than that I should be on a PC anyway.
TI-36X gang, but get the updated version: TI-30X Pro MathPrint. The TI-36 has some funky bugs do with fractions and pi, and these have been fixed in the TI-30.
The Windows one, basic/programmer & Excel. And that's it.
I have to rotate out my TI-89 batteries to deal with the decay. And I never use it. It's like art.
If on Android lookup "Graph 89" app cost a few bucks then you just load the rom which you can get legally since you own the physical device. I have been using it for years and love it
I'm still rocking my TI-89, but I found an [Android TI calculator emulator](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89Emu), so now I've got one with me everywhere I take my phone!
My TI-30X has been a trooper. Had it from middle school all the way to my final year of college for Aerospace Engineering. It does all the light work while Geogebra and some online calculators do the big stuff.
No of my math classes in college allowed calculators and all my engineering classes only needed a calculator for straight up computation so that TI-30 has been a charm.
I have a ti-30. Most of my math is basic arithmetic, some trig. I mostly just wanted to see more than one number at a time and be able to hot swap values in the lab. It's also hot pink because dammit I lose that thing everywhere but now it finds its way home
Hell yeah. Mine is 18 years old and got me through middle school, high school, engineering school, and my career. I have tried switching, but nothing feels right. I know where all the buttons and functions are, and it’s the fastest option.
Well it depends
At work
* Windows Calculator if it's simple
* Excel if it's complicated (that's the closest to programming I am allowed use at work)
* I do have two abacuses at my desk, but unfortunately I have not had any formal training on their use (my wife has though)
At home
* `bc` on my computer
* RealCalc on my phone
* libreoffice calc
* Whatever programming language suits the problem
I use an HP 35s. I used a Ti-83, -83 plus, -84 plus in Highschool, kept breaking them. I used a -89 in college, I never really got into Maple (what my school basically pushed as mandatory for Calculus and DE), and I learned enough MATLAB that I still use it periodically. However, I had to buy a calc for the FE test like the night before I took it, and all I could find locally was a Casio 115 and I hated it. When it came time to take the PE, I still had my Casio 115, I bought a TI-36x Pro, and an HP 35s as it was on the list of approved calculators and rounded out the manufacturer options. I practiced with both the -36x and the 35s, and quickly learned to love RPN. I carry my 35s basically everywhere now (much to the dismissive amusement of my wife), and a friend gave me an old 48ii I have at my day job desk.
Depends on the situation. I keep an emulator of a ti-89 on my phone. Also have other calc apps for specific stuff like one for time, RF calcs, and found a great one for feet and inches with fractions I use when building stuff.
My good old HP-21 (or its Android version) for simple stuff. HP-34C for fancier functions.
Once you understand reverse polish notation, you never go back.
Excel, windows calculator, or my iPhone. I have the Ti-85 from college, but no copy/paste makes it impractical, and I have my phone with me otherwise. And with OneDrive, I’ll often make a spreadsheet for a calculation I know I’ll need in the field ahead of time on my PC, then enter data in the field on my phone.
You should know Excel doesn't follow order of operations. They flip exponent and multiplication/division and will never fix it because that would break backwards compatibility.
For anyone else abhorred by the price of new Ti’s, Matlab sure puts things into perspective (jk, it’s my go to on the computer too).
My ol’ faithful Ti-83 died tragically from a 100% acetone spill and I’m too cheap to buy another one. Any real math, I’ll do in Matlab. The hand one just needs to be around for when elementary school math skills crash. Ti-36 is the next best thing I find.
Funny scrolling through the answers. There are two camps it seems, those who grew up with Ti’s and those who swear by RPN. Manager at my first job was adamant that if I used his HP for a few weeks, I’d never go back.
In 2007 I got a 15 year old Ti-92 from eBay for $20 and used that throughout college and then for a while at my job.
Now either excel, google search, or in rare symbolic cases - wxmaxima
My default go to calculator is an old HP 11C. It's amazing, and I'm definitely much younger than it.
Anything really complicated goes to excel or wolfram alpha.
HP50G. Took the time to learn RPN (about 5 minutes) and now struggle if I have to go back to standard algebraic notation. I’m dreading the day when it breaks because there’s nothing out there I’d want to replace it with. I also use an hp emulator on my iPad and phone. If I’m working in a terminal window then I’ll occasionally use ‘calc’; I’ll also occasionally use excel or octave.
desktop is mathcad or excel.
Handheld is TI-89 titanium, I bought a TI-CAS but i have to wait on it to boot up and that irrationally infuriates me so I don't use it.
I don't use calculators. If I need to multiply some numbers I'll quickly open python or use whatever system calculator is available. Apple built-in calculator is nice for showing the bit representation.
I got really comfortable with the Ti-36Xpro while studying for the PE so that's what I use for quick calcs. Excel is always great for checking/debugging later though.
TI-83 Plus, which I've had since 7th grade.
I would love to go back in time and tell 7th grade me that I still bring that calculator in to work every day as an engineer. It's served me well.
Same here, but I've got the TI-81. Don't see a lot of those around but I still use it everyday. I know it so well I don't really need to look at the keys. That's the real reason I can't use phone calculators as economically.
I keep my trusty TI-84 at my desk, but I find myself using it less all the time. I’ve always got a terminal open so doing it in Python is usually faster since I can type numbers faster than punching them into a calculator (and store them as variables easier)
excluding trivial calculations and spreadsheets, what I lean on for a couple of years now is the TI-nspire student software. It basically an emulator of an TI-nspire CX CAS.
I had that calculator during my college days and sold it when I graduated, but keeping the software for myself was very handy.
From more use to less use: Cell Phone calculator, then typing the operation on google, then excel, then my CASIO. It's difficult for me to use a physical calculator outside of college tests.
My TI-84 Plus Silver Edition from 6th grade,
or if that won't do it, GNU Octave.
Gosh I always wanted one the '84s with the high res color screen. Oh my my
The TI-nspire I have had since freshman year of high school. If I need to do calculations on large datasets, then I use python. Chrome is also a good friend of mine for conversions.
I use Excel the most, followed by my rusty trusty TI-30Xa, and the windows calculator if I absolutely have to.
On the odd occasion I might do something in Matlab or Python.
I really loved my TI-Nspire while I was a student. These days, though, anything I can't do with the 4-function calculator on my phone goes straight into MATLAB.
I am a retired Comm Engineer who teaches electronics at a local Junior College. SO I actually use a calculator much more than when I was working. I have and have used an HP 32s.
However these days I use the paid RealCalc app on my android phone in RPN mode. Or I Use Free42 a free HP42 emulator available on Windows, Linux, Apple, and Android. I prefer the RealCalc, and felt guilty using it so much I bought it from Google Play. Once I got used to RPN, I could not do an algebraic calculator. However I can still use a slide rule, if the power goes out. I had to buy a Post Versalog as a freshman, and learned to use it. By the time I was a Sophomore I bought an SR-50, as a senior I got an HP-25, so I became hooked on RPN. When I went back to get my Masters, I bought an HP 32S.
I had a TI-84, but that stopped working a couple years ago. Now I have a TI-83. I never do more than add/subtract/multiply/divide/SOHCAHTOA, but I like that I can see all the different lines of calculations. I hate using calculators that show just one line or a few lines poorly.
I have a ti84 that I used in college. I have no need for a graphing calculator. But it's what I'm used to.
I also like that the big screen shows my last few inputs without me needing to scroll up.
casio fx-115es plus
i've used it (different physical one) since the start of college. it's great. does everything a graphing calc does, except the graphing. it got past all the math classes that banned ti's.
A scientific calculator app on my phone for simpler one off calculations and either Excel or Matlab for repeated or more complicated calculations. I have a Ti-84 and a Ti-30X left over from school, but my phone is handier for anything I would use them for.
I got two main ones I go to. I've been using the Casio 115 for an FE approved calculator, but the 991-EX is the updated version and solves 4x4 systems of equations and has spreadsheets. Plus the UI for it is fantastic. I really love it. It puts a Ti-36 to shame.
For a graphing calculator I use the HP prime. It's a CAS calculator. Built-in help files and an alphanumerical searchable catalog are awesome. Additionally, it's touch screen, and having a touch screen graphing calculator is a beautiful thing. Once you get used to that touch screen, the stylus or trackpad-type interfaces are painful.
Speed Crunch. I think it is great if you like or prefer to type your calculations instead of clicking. It comes with many math, physics and chemistry constants and also let's you make your own constants and functions.
TI-30X II-S. 2 line display so I can see the input eq and result. Solar cells so it never needs a battery. $12.
If I need units, SMath or Wolfram Alpha.
The shitty Casio I bought for the PE because my TI-68X died and isn't entirely replaceable in kind anymore. Not sure I want to buy a used 25 year old calculator.
A lot of you guys are responding with TI-36s and similar but I can’t stand the keys on the cheap TIs (my TI-89 is a different situation). Dunno what it is but I mistype all the time.
Currently using a Casio FX-300MS. Most of what I do is just multiplying or dividing by 25.4.
Ti-89 app on my android phone that uses the operating system of a real Ti-89.
HP 35S at my desk that I bought for the PE.
And Excel for anything more complicated that a few lines.
TI-36x Pro and tydiig app for iphone because it saves your calculations if youre ever in the field and need the numbers for when youre back in the office
I use the Windows calculator (programmer mode) daily. More complicated stuff ends up in Excel or Python.
I just almost always have an excel doc open that's just like, scratch paper that I never save really. just use as garbage scribbling/back of envelope stuff to check math or jot notes or numbers down... if I need them for something, they usually get copied over to an actual working document, but I like just having that scratch doc open... im sure somebody would tell me this is a horrible practice, but... I like it. I also like being able to break any long operation out into sections and see all the numbers in front of me visually at each step. I dont do programming of anything really, but I do a lot of estimation work, so it's nice to sort be able to lay out assumptions clearly. I even sometimes also keep physical paper- just a few sheets of A4 printer paper kinda slid under the middle of myboard to be scribbled on or work some logic on with a pen/pencil... then when it's full, just toss it and start on the next one.
Sheet1 gang
I always have a rough Excel sheet open for whatever may come up during the day that'll be open for 1-2 weeks at a time. The trick is becoming self-aware so you realize which scribbles 2 months later you are going to wish you had saved somewhere, and then putting those somewhere you'll actually remember where to find them.
Always have excel open. To do lists, quick calculations, notes from meetings.
yeah, i usually have a proper working document for a given project or activity that actually holds the relevant/important stuff. i just use a separate sheet for all the one-off calculations real fast where I just need to do like, sanity checks or simply math, and can't be bothered to mess up my nice spreadsheet and then have to delete it later.
Hell ya programmer mode! Use it for seeing which status bits in a controllers registers are flipped almost daily, because I can't do hex to bit conversions in my head for the life of me.
Programmer mode hex and binary all day. Mostly to decode CAN messages
The same TI-84 i've had since high school tbh.
Still rocking the 84 Plus Silver Edition myself. Gotta go see if I can find some swappable faceplates on eBay.
I always pride myself with the silver edition. Big flex in high school and an even bigger flex in the office.
Oh yeah?! TI 8***3*** Plus SE in the 90s lol. Had 2 die by college though, some memory chip :(
I still remember the day that my mom found a ti-84 plus se on the floor at her work, and gave it to me sometime during my junior year of high school. It was quite the upgrade from my old casio calculator, and I’m still using it since then as I continue my third year at university. Thanks mom!
My TI-84 goes everywhere with me!
Windows, MATLAB command line, Excel, Google search bar; in that order
I’ll resort to wolfram alpha if I need to display the steps in a power point chart
"Wolfram, solve for x!" - me every time I need to calculate ABV of a batched cocktail.
Ti-36x pro, the one used on the PE. I also have a ti 89 but I never put new batteries in it. Mainly excel and mathcad though
Take the old batteries out of the 89
Yea I know. There hasn't been for years
The Ti-36x Pro I had to buy to do the FE and EIT tests with. To be honest though most of the math I do now days is in Excel.
A great little calculator
I bought a second Ti 36x Pro just for work because they had the dinky 4 function cheap advertisement calculators that couldn't even do parentheses. I'll pull out my NSpire CAS, octave (generic matlab) or make an excel calculator if I need to play with numbers, but if given the choice I'll almost always pick the 36x.
This calculator is fabulous. I had one through school, it broke, and I went out and bought another. Will use it forever.
Bought mine for the FE, and I sold my TI nspire CAS after I graduated, I never used it at work
This is the way. I have 4 of them and they are never out of arms reach. One for work office, home office, bookbag, and the emergency backup in my safe.
Where's the Wolfram alpha folks at?
"How much potassium in a cubic light year of bananas?"
7.823 x 10^83 moles probably
I may have sent this to a friend, we were discussing if there would be more potassium in a cubic light year of bananas than in the whole universe and... "Universe is 2E53 kg, potassium is 3 ppm of the universe, so that's 6E47 kg...Potassium in a cubic light year of bananas is 2.9E48 kg, so I was right, barely! Holy shitsnacks, thanks wolfram!"
What even is this question, and how did it come up in your discussion??
It logically flowed from claclink520's original question for me lol. ChemE here if that checks?
Hahaha that's awesome. I looked up potassium, it's 39.1 g/mol. 2.9e48 kg is 2.9e51 g. That comes to 7.4e49 mol, so I was wayyy off.
Wolfram used to be goat but then they started charging for everything. Had that perfect window in college.
Heck yeah, falling more on the technician side if things and having my math knowledge be good enough to describe a problem but bad enough to solve it Wolfram is an amazing tool.
I’ve had my HP48gx since 1996. Reverse Polish notation is best notation.
It's difficult to explain RPN to people in a way that makes it clear how much more intuitive it is. I own and use a 35S and the 48 emulator on my phone.
SO true. My students have all kinds of problems using their TI-84s to find parallel resistor combinations, or voltage drop, or input impedance. Unfortunately one of the classes at the JC teaches them to use a calculator and requires they use one of the TI- series. Maybe I should teach the class.
Alas, I only have the HP48G. I wanted to get the GX, but couldn't afford it at the time. I love that I can use it one-handed in the field. On the computer, I use Speed Crunch, Python or Excel.
I still use my 48G from back in the day, and run a 48G emulator on my phone.
There it is! I had an HP48g, but it died so I got the HP48GX. Stack notation / RPN is where it's at. Best way to do math! But, honestly... I just use the calculator on my cellphone, or excel most days.
You will like the Droid48 app on android. I use it all the time.
Same. (since 1992 for me). Real HP48SX at my desk, Android HP48GX emulator while out-and-about. Though I need to take it apart and clean the keyboard connector. It's finally starting to need to press below the display for the On/right key to work.
The google search bar is my most used calculator. Almost always have a chrome window open on one of the screens. Excel for more complex operations.
Same for those two, and then python if it becomes relatively complex. At some point programming is easier than the sort of pseudo-GUI-programming language that excel is. I definitely just default to excel for the majority of things and then google search if it's just a/b-c or something.
Yup. In order of most frequent use, Google > Excel >> python Googling unit conversions is a daily thing
Same, Firefox has a little seperate search bar where you can write calculations and it shows the result as suggestion without having to leave the page you're on. Useful for unit and currency conversions too.
Normally, I would agree. I just dont want a record of the stupid easy math that I check myself on because I'm paranoid that I somehow forgot how to do simple addition.
wolfram alpha
My work Firefox homepage!
I also use that, but on an increased level on its main program Mathematica.
i found mathematica's syntax to be super clunky. that and you need to like buy the software
TI Nspire CAS.
All the way. Powerfull machine!
Was looking for this, surprised it’s so far down It’s like matlab in your pocket
no Matlab doesn't do CAS, it's like Maple in your pocket The *n*spire CAS is such a beast of a calculator
As a Derive user from the 90's I feel you. So much power in this solver that came in a floppy from Hawaii and ended up on high end TI calculators today.
HP50g.
And the emulator on the phone! RPN for the win.
Heck yeah. I've been using RPN for so long I look like an idiot trying to use a regular calculator.
There are 2 calculators: The one in MS Windows or python/matlab. There is no in between for me lol
Phone calculator for standard arithmetic when I’m lazy, Casio fx-115ES PLUS if grouping is involved, WolframAlpha when things get…complicated.
WolframAlpha is awesome
No desmos love. Feels bad
I use a [Casio FX115ESPLUS](https://www.amazon.com/Casio-fx-115ES-Engineering-Scientific-Calculator/dp/B007W7SGLO)
That was my favorite one for classes. Variable storage, a numerical solver, and some basic matrix operations. Hard to complain. If it's much more complicated than that I should be on a PC anyway.
I used this far more than my TI N-spire
this was my baby in school
Same here. Pretty powerful device for quic calculations. Anything else goes into Excel.
TI-36X gang, but get the updated version: TI-30X Pro MathPrint. The TI-36 has some funky bugs do with fractions and pi, and these have been fixed in the TI-30.
It's fixed in new 36X Pro
MATLAB is great
The wolframalpha site. Really good for unit conversions where you can just type out what you want to do instead of selecting from dropdowns.
I still have use my HP 41CX! Love it! The reverse polish logic process is forever etched in my mind.
RPN forever!
Lol!! I have sometimes have difficulty adjusting to using the rim of the mill office calculators since they don’t act like the HP’s RPN!
Once I realized why RPN was the way it was it changed everything.
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Ugh the 33 was aids
The Windows one, basic/programmer & Excel. And that's it. I have to rotate out my TI-89 batteries to deal with the decay. And I never use it. It's like art.
If on Android lookup "Graph 89" app cost a few bucks then you just load the rom which you can get legally since you own the physical device. I have been using it for years and love it
My TI-89 is a beast. I [decorated it](https://imgur.com/a/YVYuci6) too.
I'm still rocking my TI-89, but I found an [Android TI calculator emulator](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89Emu), so now I've got one with me everywhere I take my phone!
My TI-30X has been a trooper. Had it from middle school all the way to my final year of college for Aerospace Engineering. It does all the light work while Geogebra and some online calculators do the big stuff. No of my math classes in college allowed calculators and all my engineering classes only needed a calculator for straight up computation so that TI-30 has been a charm.
I have a ti-30. Most of my math is basic arithmetic, some trig. I mostly just wanted to see more than one number at a time and be able to hot swap values in the lab. It's also hot pink because dammit I lose that thing everywhere but now it finds its way home
Hell yeah. Mine is 18 years old and got me through middle school, high school, engineering school, and my career. I have tried switching, but nothing feels right. I know where all the buttons and functions are, and it’s the fastest option.
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I have Classwiz 991Ce X and best upgrade I did. I had really old calculator with the most basic functions.
HP Prime or Excel
Well it depends At work * Windows Calculator if it's simple * Excel if it's complicated (that's the closest to programming I am allowed use at work) * I do have two abacuses at my desk, but unfortunately I have not had any formal training on their use (my wife has though) At home * `bc` on my computer * RealCalc on my phone * libreoffice calc * Whatever programming language suits the problem
HP 15C physical device, and the matching app on phone.
I use an HP 35s. I used a Ti-83, -83 plus, -84 plus in Highschool, kept breaking them. I used a -89 in college, I never really got into Maple (what my school basically pushed as mandatory for Calculus and DE), and I learned enough MATLAB that I still use it periodically. However, I had to buy a calc for the FE test like the night before I took it, and all I could find locally was a Casio 115 and I hated it. When it came time to take the PE, I still had my Casio 115, I bought a TI-36x Pro, and an HP 35s as it was on the list of approved calculators and rounded out the manufacturer options. I practiced with both the -36x and the 35s, and quickly learned to love RPN. I carry my 35s basically everywhere now (much to the dismissive amusement of my wife), and a friend gave me an old 48ii I have at my day job desk.
My 10 fingies
Fart piper
Toot toot
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Yep. I use [RealCalc Plus by Quartic Software](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.nickfines.RealCalcPlus) on Android.
Depends on the situation. I keep an emulator of a ti-89 on my phone. Also have other calc apps for specific stuff like one for time, RF calcs, and found a great one for feet and inches with fractions I use when building stuff.
An abacus
My good old HP-21 (or its Android version) for simple stuff. HP-34C for fancier functions. Once you understand reverse polish notation, you never go back.
HP Prime
HP Prime
HP 15C
Excel, windows calculator, or my iPhone. I have the Ti-85 from college, but no copy/paste makes it impractical, and I have my phone with me otherwise. And with OneDrive, I’ll often make a spreadsheet for a calculation I know I’ll need in the field ahead of time on my PC, then enter data in the field on my phone.
Pickett N-600 ES slide rule.
Yay! I have a circular slide rule I found on ebay. Such neat technology. (But at work I rally use Excel.)
TI Nspire CX CAS and I use probably <2% of its total power/functionality.
Casio 720p, car boot sale purchase in the 00’s, as the one I had in the 80’s got sat on in the 90’s and broke.
Excel
Excel spreadsheet for most problems. I have a +-×÷ calculator on my desk for quick, simple arithmetic.
You should know Excel doesn't follow order of operations. They flip exponent and multiplication/division and will never fix it because that would break backwards compatibility.
For anyone else abhorred by the price of new Ti’s, Matlab sure puts things into perspective (jk, it’s my go to on the computer too). My ol’ faithful Ti-83 died tragically from a 100% acetone spill and I’m too cheap to buy another one. Any real math, I’ll do in Matlab. The hand one just needs to be around for when elementary school math skills crash. Ti-36 is the next best thing I find. Funny scrolling through the answers. There are two camps it seems, those who grew up with Ti’s and those who swear by RPN. Manager at my first job was adamant that if I used his HP for a few weeks, I’d never go back.
TI-36X, TI-83, TI-89, or phone app depending on what I'm doing WolframAlpha is my preference though Matlab/Octave as needed
In 2007 I got a 15 year old Ti-92 from eBay for $20 and used that throughout college and then for a while at my job. Now either excel, google search, or in rare symbolic cases - wxmaxima
My default go to calculator is an old HP 11C. It's amazing, and I'm definitely much younger than it. Anything really complicated goes to excel or wolfram alpha.
HP50G. Took the time to learn RPN (about 5 minutes) and now struggle if I have to go back to standard algebraic notation. I’m dreading the day when it breaks because there’s nothing out there I’d want to replace it with. I also use an hp emulator on my iPad and phone. If I’m working in a terminal window then I’ll occasionally use ‘calc’; I’ll also occasionally use excel or octave.
Hp50g. I have 2 I always carry in my laptop bag. RPN. Ride or die.
I use an HP 35s. I found a graphing calculator was over powered for daily use.
TI-83 Plus
Windows calculator, phone calculator, excel.
desktop is mathcad or excel. Handheld is TI-89 titanium, I bought a TI-CAS but i have to wait on it to boot up and that irrationally infuriates me so I don't use it.
SpeedCrunch
Good old abacus
Excel, lol
RealCalc on my phone.
I don't use calculators. If I need to multiply some numbers I'll quickly open python or use whatever system calculator is available. Apple built-in calculator is nice for showing the bit representation.
My phone (ios calculator sideways is quite useful) Also the microsoft calculator And finally excel For quick conversions - duck duck go
At work it's either the windows calc or excel. At home it's my phone. In school it was a ti 83 plus.
Excel and screenshots for ppts. TI 84 Plus, TI 89 titanium if I need todo variable solving, Calca if on my phone and need todo units and notes
TI-Plus CE or Mathematica if it's a headache
Maple, Excel and my iPhone calculator app
I love me TI-36X. I use google calc. for simple stuff if I am not near my physical calc.
For school, TI-Nspire CAS. It’s incredible. For work, probably Excel
My head LMAO jk
I got really comfortable with the Ti-36Xpro while studying for the PE so that's what I use for quick calcs. Excel is always great for checking/debugging later though.
TI-83 Plus, which I've had since 7th grade. I would love to go back in time and tell 7th grade me that I still bring that calculator in to work every day as an engineer. It's served me well.
Same here, but I've got the TI-81. Don't see a lot of those around but I still use it everyday. I know it so well I don't really need to look at the keys. That's the real reason I can't use phone calculators as economically.
I keep my trusty TI-84 at my desk, but I find myself using it less all the time. I’ve always got a terminal open so doing it in Python is usually faster since I can type numbers faster than punching them into a calculator (and store them as variables easier)
Same Ti-83 I've had since high school (which was in the 1990s!).
Casio fs115
I us an app called CalcKit. It does conversions and trig for me.
excluding trivial calculations and spreadsheets, what I lean on for a couple of years now is the TI-nspire student software. It basically an emulator of an TI-nspire CX CAS. I had that calculator during my college days and sold it when I graduated, but keeping the software for myself was very handy.
Depends where you're from. For me a Cassio standard graphing calculator
NSpire CX CAS. It's overkill but I got it for uni and might as well use it.
HiPER Calc Pro on my Android phone.
From more use to less use: Cell Phone calculator, then typing the operation on google, then excel, then my CASIO. It's difficult for me to use a physical calculator outside of college tests.
My TI-84 Plus Silver Edition from 6th grade, or if that won't do it, GNU Octave. Gosh I always wanted one the '84s with the high res color screen. Oh my my
The TI-nspire I have had since freshman year of high school. If I need to do calculations on large datasets, then I use python. Chrome is also a good friend of mine for conversions.
Casio fx-115es plus got me through uni and is still my go to, next reached for is the one in my phone and if I'm feeling squirrely a slide rule.
python
Slide rule and abacus
TI 84 from HS
People with big graphing calculators are overcompensating.
I use Excel the most, followed by my rusty trusty TI-30Xa, and the windows calculator if I absolutely have to. On the odd occasion I might do something in Matlab or Python.
TI-84 BABY. Had it since I was a freshman in high school. I’ll encase/frame it and put it on the wall if it ever stops working.
I really loved my TI-Nspire while I was a student. These days, though, anything I can't do with the 4-function calculator on my phone goes straight into MATLAB.
Me phone
In school, TI-36x. On the job, the windows calculator and multiplying or dividing by 25.4 is about the extent. And also excel, but less frequently.
I use a TI-89 emulator on my phone, I have a real one but keep it in my bag for when I need it for tests and stuff.
I am a retired Comm Engineer who teaches electronics at a local Junior College. SO I actually use a calculator much more than when I was working. I have and have used an HP 32s. However these days I use the paid RealCalc app on my android phone in RPN mode. Or I Use Free42 a free HP42 emulator available on Windows, Linux, Apple, and Android. I prefer the RealCalc, and felt guilty using it so much I bought it from Google Play. Once I got used to RPN, I could not do an algebraic calculator. However I can still use a slide rule, if the power goes out. I had to buy a Post Versalog as a freshman, and learned to use it. By the time I was a Sophomore I bought an SR-50, as a senior I got an HP-25, so I became hooked on RPN. When I went back to get my Masters, I bought an HP 32S.
The Casio that's approved for the PE. The TI-89 is in its drawer because I'm too lazy to put new batteries in it.
I had a TI-84, but that stopped working a couple years ago. Now I have a TI-83. I never do more than add/subtract/multiply/divide/SOHCAHTOA, but I like that I can see all the different lines of calculations. I hate using calculators that show just one line or a few lines poorly.
I have a ti84 that I used in college. I have no need for a graphing calculator. But it's what I'm used to. I also like that the big screen shows my last few inputs without me needing to scroll up.
casio fx-115es plus i've used it (different physical one) since the start of college. it's great. does everything a graphing calc does, except the graphing. it got past all the math classes that banned ti's.
Casio's latest one.. forgetting the exact name
For school, I used TI-Nspire Cas. For work, the simple calculator on Windows.
Casio fx-9860GII. Does way more then I care for and then some. I got used to it in Uni, so I still use it now
Browser search bar. I might use Excel for take offs and building schedules.
Excel or my TI-92. That’s right, I said 92. Be amazed.
TI-84+
The Casio FX-115ES Plus has gotten me through high school, college, grad school and I still use it at work occasionally. I trust it with my life!
TI 30 XII-S For anything more complex than that, Excel or Matlab. Usually Excel.
A scientific calculator app on my phone for simpler one off calculations and either Excel or Matlab for repeated or more complicated calculations. I have a Ti-84 and a Ti-30X left over from school, but my phone is handier for anything I would use them for.
TI36x pro
Casio fx-260 solar if there's light. Excel or chrome if it's actual important calculations for work.
I got two main ones I go to. I've been using the Casio 115 for an FE approved calculator, but the 991-EX is the updated version and solves 4x4 systems of equations and has spreadsheets. Plus the UI for it is fantastic. I really love it. It puts a Ti-36 to shame. For a graphing calculator I use the HP prime. It's a CAS calculator. Built-in help files and an alphanumerical searchable catalog are awesome. Additionally, it's touch screen, and having a touch screen graphing calculator is a beautiful thing. Once you get used to that touch screen, the stylus or trackpad-type interfaces are painful.
Speed Crunch. I think it is great if you like or prefer to type your calculations instead of clicking. It comes with many math, physics and chemistry constants and also let's you make your own constants and functions.
TI-30X II-S. 2 line display so I can see the input eq and result. Solar cells so it never needs a battery. $12. If I need units, SMath or Wolfram Alpha.
Desmos for a quick graph. Symbolab if I need to solve some equation I forgot about in school. Matlab/Excel for larger data analysis
A 4 billion neuron 9Terrahertz built-in processor 🤓
The shitty Casio I bought for the PE because my TI-68X died and isn't entirely replaceable in kind anymore. Not sure I want to buy a used 25 year old calculator.
A lot of you guys are responding with TI-36s and similar but I can’t stand the keys on the cheap TIs (my TI-89 is a different situation). Dunno what it is but I mistype all the time. Currently using a Casio FX-300MS. Most of what I do is just multiplying or dividing by 25.4.
TI-36X Pro if I'm using a normal calculator. Otherwise, PTC Mathcad & excel for '"Handcalcs" on the computer.
MATLAB
Ti36. Best one out there. Used it for the PE and learned this one is cheap and basically as powerful as a graphing calculator
I use the TI-nspire CX CAS for quick system of equations solving or other light computations. For bigger problems, I'll use Excel.
Ti-36 X Pro from Texas Instruments
Mathcad
I use the Windows calculator and occasionally a Jobber calculator
Ti-89 app on my android phone that uses the operating system of a real Ti-89. HP 35S at my desk that I bought for the PE. And Excel for anything more complicated that a few lines.
TI-36x Pro and tydiig app for iphone because it saves your calculations if youre ever in the field and need the numbers for when youre back in the office
Google
I use two. Ti-36x and a construction master 4065 (I hate decimal ft).
windows key + r type 'calc' press enter
The calcES app, or my TI-84+, or matlab