With a one-line segmented lcd display, I wouldn't care that it's flashable even if it ran linux. There's no way I'd get one.
The 12c I can somewhat understand. It has a niche; it's accepted on a bunch of financial-related exams where other more advanced calculators are banned, and many financial geeks can operate it instinctively. Common Finance operations accessible with one or two keystrokes, combined with RPN, make it invaluable even though modern calculators are far more expandable and capable than the 12c.
However, I see no place for the 15c. You could buy a HP 50g on amazon for the cost ($100) of the limited edition 15c.
In testing situations where the 50g is not allowed, there will be no need for numerical integration or matrix manipulation, so a cheap calculator like a HP 300s or TI 34 would be perfectly adequate at a small fraction of the cost.
You see no place for the 15c? Just because the graphing 50g is in the same price range? Solely based on "testing situations"?
Kinda sad, actually. I have an original 15c and still use it regularly. For me, a calculator is about assisting me in the calculations I need, not in walking me completely through them. A single line LCD display has proven completely adequate for situations where I need to take logs, calculate n^x, etc.
Why must a calculator do everything for you? I remember a time when numerical integration, matrix multiplication, and derivatives were done by hand. Additionally, we weren't allowed calculators in tests.
Pardon the rant, but it is comments like the statement above that make me appreciate having studied under people like David Huffman (of Huffman Coding) and instilled in me the ability and desire to derive things from first principles.
The quality of the keyboard cannot be overstated, both the size and the physical feedback is perfect.
The 50G is a lot larger than the 15C which fits easily into a normal pocket.
The 15C is like an Apple product: it has the needed functionality and wastes no space or keys on fancy flashy fluff you're never going to use: "Perfection is achieved ... when there is nothing left to take away".
Programming it is very intuitive, "getting" the 15C is the best indicator I had in high school for figuring out who understood math and who just carbon copied the teacher.
On one thing we agree. There is rarely if ever a place for calculators when doing real math, for which I have a healthy interest and appreciation. But that's not because advanced calculators offer an advantage; rather, it's because they are usually irrelevant and at best only marginally helpful in the construction of proofs.
However, as you say from your educational experience, calculators can simply be banned on any lower math exams where they're inappropriate, or the exams can often be designed so that the calculators, even with CAS and equation solving capability, offer no meaningful help.
Like I said, if advanced functionality is not needed or wanted, a vastly cheaper HP 300s or TI 34 today would be more than adequate.
My point is that students are not going to spend $100 on a non-graphing calculator, and professionals are either going to want a 50g for its substantially improved capabilities, or will not be using a calculator much to begin with.
So that leaves me concluding that 15c limited edition buyers will be professionals with nostalgia for the 15c but little use for calculators these days.
My enthusiasm for graphing calculators (specifically, rpn stack-based graphing calculators) has little to do with graphing, and nothing to do with equation solving or CAS (neither of which I used much on my graphing calculators), but rather simply this: Take the 15c, give it a better display, increase the stack size from 4 to a lot, and make the last few stack levels visible at all times. That's what an RPN graphing calculator gives you, and that's what's worth $100.
Why must a calculator do everything for you? I remember a time when numerical integration, matrix multiplication, and derivatives were done by hand. Additionally, we weren't allowed calculators in tests. Pardon the rant, but it is comments like the statement above that make me appreciate having studied under people like David Huffman (of Huffman Coding) and instilled in me the ability and desire to derive things from first principles.
I'd suggest that people just like you were saying things just like this back in the HP 15C's heyday... except they were saying them about slide rules. Is there any more merit in your words than there was in theirs?
The 12c I can somewhat understand. It has a niche; it's accepted on a bunch of financial-related exams where other more advanced calculators are banned, and many financial geeks can operate it instinctively. Common Finance operations accessible with one or two keystrokes, combined with RPN, make it invaluable even though modern calculators are far more expandable and capable than the 12c.
However, I see no place for the 15c. You could buy a HP 50g on amazon for the cost ($100) of the limited edition 15c.
In testing situations where the 50g is not allowed, there will be no need for numerical integration or matrix manipulation, so a cheap calculator like a HP 300s or TI 34 would be perfectly adequate at a small fraction of the cost.