Are Calculators Still Useful?

January 26th, 2007 by Will | Posted in Uncategorized |

Scientific Computing recently posted
their thoughts on the usefulness of scientific calculators. They also had an interview
with a representative of Texas Instruments. When the rep was asked the question of
“why would I still use a calculator now that computers are so cheap?”

The final explanation, and the only one that Scientific Computing was satisfied with
was that for a calculator, “you can take it into an exam, but most exam systems do
not allow you to bring a computer in.”

For myself, I haven’t touched a calculator in quite a while. For simple problems,
I will just use Windows
Calculator, or Google.
And of course, for anything else, I use Maple.

I spent a lot of time using a TI-83 which
definitely made life a lot easier for me. However, once I discovered the usefulness
of doing mathematics on the computer I quickly abandoned the calculator.

There is a post
on Slashdot that asks what is the best graphing calculator. In this discussion,
several of the commenter’s suggest using Maple instead.

So I am posing the question, how many of you still use calculators? If you don’t have
to worry about where you can take a computer, would you choose to use a calculator,
or would you rather do your math on your computer?