Talking to my kids this morning and wondered something strange. Do adults ever use calculators and not computers for their day job? If yes why, and why does it make sense to use a physical calculator for that and not an app or computer?
I use a TI-89 I’ve used since high school 20 years ago a couple times a week. Mostly to simplify equations or rewrite multi-variable equations to solve for a particular variable. I could do it by hand but why bother and why introduce human error. I’ve never found a tool that made that sort of symbolic math simpler. I have TI-92 but I find the larger form factor cumbersome and without benefit.<p>I use a TI-89 emulator on my phone as well… I just know my way around it and how to do everything I need to.
I recently got really fed up with Windows calculator and bought a scientific calculator. I do a lot of conversions to/from hex during tasks where I have a lot of windows onscreen, so the thought of having effectively an extra screen, a dedicated keyboard that didn't require me to change window focus, and better ergonomics was very appealing.<p>Honestly I'm not using it all that much, despite trying to train myself to use it every time I need to calculate something. The well-rehearsed muscle memory of 'win+R, calc, enter' is kinda hard to beat. And the ergonomics aren't as good as I'd hoped - converting to/from hex and entering hex numbers involves more use of shift and alpha-shift keys than I had expected.
When I was making gears, a pen and paper, and a $11 Casio science calculator were the main things I used to figure out angles, etc. It had a nice DMS (Degree Minute Second) conversion mode.<p>You write down your calculations and keep them with the work, as you're working on multiple jobs at the same time, and it helps keep things straight.<p>There's grease and oil everywhere, stuff tends to disappear or get forgotten, so a low budget knowledge base works best.<p>It's amazing how much stuff you can get done with such a cheap calculator.
I've got one lying on the desk, next to my pencil and notebook. It's generally faster and less distracting to grab the calculator and write a note by hand, than to it is to change focus, bring up a calculator, and then write something in a comment/text document.
Not me, but in a previous job the interim office manager used a physical calculator to add up columns from an excel sheet she was working on with her computer. I gave her a quick intro into SUM & co. Unsurprisingly, those tasks took a lot less time after that!
I'm usually next to a computer when I need those sorts of results. The calculator keyboard button is mapped to a wrapper around a python repl with a bunch of tools pre-imported, and that's generally faster and easier than a calculator would have been.<p>In the field though, phone calculators are still kind of bad. They're a nice blend of being clunky to do anything fancy while simultaneously not supporting almost any features. If anyone has any recommendations for better apps I'm all ears, but if I were doing stuff away from my desk more often I'd want a real calculator.
Pharmaceutical laboratory here: my colleagues, lab technicians, almost all have a scientific calculator on their desk and they use it quite often. The reason is they know exactly how to use it and when they're filling their paper lab notebook, it's in easy reach and faster than put the notebook away, unlock the computer, learn how to use the computer, then get back to the notebook and write the result.
On-screen and phone calculators seem hell-bent on replicating all the worst aspects of the absolute worst physical calculators on the market. Why would anyone want to use that?<p>I could of course get a more advanced calculator app, or use Maxima, but I already own a decent bitmap display calculator with scrollable history that I used in school, so using that is simply the path of least resistance.
I do. Well, I do use both.<p>I tend to use either a command-line calculator (to minimise context switching, for simple calculations) or a physical TI calculator for simple matrix calculations, CAS features such as analytical derivatives simple integration, and dimension analysis (which is vital in my corner of Physics and very rarely done properly in software calculators).
I’m a graphics programmer and I use a physical one fairly often while debugging shaders<p>With rendering code I find a lot of the time you have to draw it out on paper to understand what it is doing/how it works<p>Typically simple calculations involving trig/vectors<p>I find it easier to have a physical one rather than flipping back and forth between paper/computer
I love my TI-89. Now Wolfram Alpha makes some/most things easier, but I still have a sweet spot for my TI. I still have my physical calculator in my desk drawer, but I also have 2 emulators for my phone [1] and my computer [2]. I think both require you to extract the ROM from your physical calculator, but either way, it's worth it if you love your TI!<p>[1] <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89EmuDonation" rel="nofollow">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Bisha.TI89...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/84/8442.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/84/8442.html</a>
I am an accountant and no I never use a physical calculator other than when studying for the CPA exam as one is permitted in the test room.<p>I spend a lot of time in excel and if I need a quick calculation I do it in a cell to the side. This is often quicker because the figures are often in the workbook already.<p>If I don’t have excel open, I will use the calculator app if I’m doing a quick check calc using some figures from a PDF, email, etc. However even this is remarkably faster than picking up a physical calculator let alone having to carry something with me.<p>Although some of the partners at the firm still use physical calculators, the overwhelming majority of people I work with do not use a physical calculator.
For many decades I've kept an HP calculator on my desk within easy reach. I use it regularly for one thing or another. (day job: programmer)<p>Due to force of habit, my physical calculator is easier and faster to use than on-screen calculators. Not unlike Emacs commands, the calculator interface is burned into muscle memory: my fingers know how to use it more than my brain does.<p>I use an emulator app on my phone when not at my desk, but it's always unsatisfying. Real calculator buttons give me some kind of brain-stem level of satisfaction that a functionally identical phone app can't match.
Yes, an HP-32SII RPN calculator. I teach math and sometimes have to do some calculations while lecturing. My fingers know how to do RPN by themselves, so I can use the calculator blind while continuing to speak. This can be a good trick to impress students. (They would be much less impressed if they ever saw me try to use a non-RPN calculator and fail at simple things.)<p>The calculator also comes in handy for tallying marks on exams, and it's much more pleasant to use than a calculator app on the computer. I do have Free42 installed everywhere but I don't use it that much.
No, even for a traditionally calculator heavy job like accounting it is no longer necessary.<p>Most of the time I'm not dealing with a number but lots of them anyway so excel is just better both practically and as a mental model
My father still has his an HP-41CX he was given for his HS graduation in the early 80s, which he had restored about a decade ago. He uses it mainly, but not exclusively, when he wants to show it off.
A while ago I started using the Emacs calculator ("calc") instead of a phone or TI-84/NSpire/whatever was available. I found an absolutely astounding difference in ergonomics. I don't know if you want to call this a "calculator" or not, but wow...<p>On another front, I use a physical calculator when baking. There's no worry about keeping it clean (ha), and hands that are wet or covered with flour do not have any problem unlocking it and getting presses on the screen to register.
Yeah I just like the clicky buttons, plus the nostalgia (TI-BASIC was my introduction to programming)<p>It's a TI-86 that I bought on ebay in college because they were cheaper than the 83, 84, and 89.
It's hard to beat the built-in calculator functionality found in some accounting software. For example, in Quickbooks, in any numeric input field, you can type a number and then an operator (like +, / etc) and it automatically shifts into calculator mode right there in the input field, with the result pasted automatically into the field.<p>Similarly, my income tax software pops up a built-in calculator upon pressing a function key, and the result is automatically pasted back when done.
I use a calculator at work sometimes.<p>Say I'm on the phone with a customer, looking up a part for their lawnmower, and I need to apply markup on the dealer price I see on the screen. It's quicker for me to one handed type on the large physical calculator that's stored right beside the computer than to open a calculator on the computer and the computer one might even cover up the numbers I need to see on the screen.
As a physicist working in offices, labs and cleanrooms, I have a HP Prime calculator but I almost always use it's Android emulator instead. It's an handy calculator so it's emulator is also handy, plus I don't need to carry another phone sized device with me.
Not for my day job (my job doesn’t involve many calculations that are simple enough to do on a standard calculator), but I have one on my home office desk that I use all the time for personal things. (It’s much nicer to use than calculator apps.)
I use a physical calculator for two reasons:<p>- <i>actual</i> (not simulated) haptic/tactile feedback<p>- I don't want to pull out my phone/laptop to do the non-trivial math<p>I <i>also</i> do mental math, making sure that what I'm calculating is in the right ballpark
I sometimes use a calculator at work when sketching and estimating an idea, and when checking my detailed work. It's an extra layer of defense against a mistake, but I never rely on it.
yes, a calculator is just easier to use. I can move it around without much thought. It's always available. I like the sensation of making sure the key was completely pressed. Over all, I deal with less errors. Computers have their place but so do simple calculators. And they are cheap!<p>I recently found my TI graphing calculator. I pushed the on button and it started. It's a killer calculator. I can graph, do statistics, it can be programmed and it's mostly useless to me now. A bit of a bummer :(.
Not for work, but I have a calculator I sometimes use for navigation in my flight simulator (e.g. coordinate format conversion when flying historical aircraft without digital computers)
I still use my HP-32sii [and more recently, the remake, the HP-35] for dev work. I use it mostly for calculations involving hexadecimal values when I'm in a debugging session.
I'm (re)learning math and use a physical calculator. I'm not really sure why though, I think it's psychological? My computer or phone could do it all just as easily.
I make medications in a compounding Pharmacy so I regularly need to calculate weights and volumes and account for slight differences in the potency of bulk drugs.
No: I never use a calculator and never need to do calculations. If I do, I use Google Sheets or Google search.<p>Just doing a Google search with an equation is generally enough.