simulated calculators and slide rules

[jrtom]

My venerable HP-42S has been quiescent for several months, partially because I don't do as many matrix operations as I used to (at least not on data sets for which I'm willing to enter things by hand), and partially because it requires 3 relatively expensive batteries whose name I can never remember when I'm somewhere that they might actually be sold. (LR44, thanks for asking.)

My Palm Tungsten E would have been replaced by now if it weren't for the fact that Good Guys got acquired by CompUSA (grr) which subsequently failed to honor Good Guys' replacement contract (double grr). Among other things, its speaker has been busted for months, thus making it useless for one of its prime purposes, i.e., beeping at me to remind me to cope with stuff. (Right now I'm waiting for the iPhone to appear so that I can decide whether I really want one.)

However, enough people apparently like the HP-42S--despite the fact that it was discontinued 12 years ago (gak!)--that there is a thriving community of enthusiasts that have created emulators for various platforms, including PalmOS. Including this one: http://home.planet.nl/~demun000/thomas_projects/free42/
which even has skins that make the display look like the actual physical calculator.

I mean, this is seriously cool. I have my calculator back! :)


On a related (and complementary) note, my officemate and I were discussing the ridiculousness of phones that need to be rebooted occasionally (including observations to the effect that sometimes smartphones wrap all the way around and become dumber than actual phones). This led somehow to speculations as to whether there are such things as slide rule emulators for smartphones.

Well, I don't know about ones for smartphones, but there are definitely slide rule emulators available on the web, including these:

http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/virtual-slide-rule.html
http://www.taswegian.com/TwoHeaded/UniVirtual/UniVirtual.html

This makes me happy. (It's not like I'm especially good at using a slide rule, although I own at least three of them including one made of silver that functions as a tie tack. But they're beautifully elegant devices, and I'm glad that they're not completely dead.)