HP48G: A New Addition to the Calculator Collection

A while ago I was browsing Ebay and came across a second hand HP48G which looked quite nice. Price was OK so I decided to buy it. It travelled quite a while coming from the US but it was in working order. The included batteries were apparently old because they died after a month or so. I got a bit nervous when the calculator didn’t switch on anymore but after charging some bateries overnight and putting them in the machine is working again. I have calculators lying in multiple rooms in the house which saves me walking back and forth when I am sitting in a room and find myself in need of one, for example when reviewing and preparing some math work for my son. I could of course take out the phone and start and open an app but so far these apps have not been very satisfactory. I found out recently that there is an emulator of the HP41 available in the app store that at least brings all the functionality from classic HP calculators to the iPhone, including RPN. My kids hate RPN but I find it much easier to perform calculations, no need to worry about the right sequence of entering numbers and using parentheses. At least, with the calculators that have a stack you can reduce the amount of thinking about the sequence quite a bit. I guess it is a matter of preference and familiarity mostly but I got used to RPN since high school days and I see no need to change the habit.