Old but still the best

[kustard (Simon)]

Last year my Casio FX-850P "personal computer" started playing up. I've had this calculator for over 22 years and it's been a great unit, very easy to use with a good deal of handy features.

So I went out and spent some cash on a new TI-nSPIRE CAS graphing calculator. Well what a waste. Not only is it tedious to use and full of stuff I'll never ever use, it takes a minute to boot up! Way to long for wanting to do some quick calculations.

An hour with some jewellers screwdrivers, a new set of batteries and some air-in-a-can and the old FX-850P was back up and working. The TI-nSPIRE is now sitting in a drawer, never to see the light of day...

[Astro_Bot]

I had a similar experience - my TI-25 (I think that was it - it was all black with the pretty full range of scientific and engineering functions) was a great calculator that served me well from 1992 to 2008 before it died. The replacement was one of those graphing jobs with all the bells and whistles, but it's so much harder to drive and nowhere near as useful, at least not without a lot more work to get there. I barely use it.

If only I could bring that TI-25 back to life ....