I am interested in a cheap, easy to use, programmable pocket calculator I can use for celestial navigation calculations.
I don’t need graphics, I don’t need colors, I don’t need super-sophisticated math capabilities (I already have an HP48 that has more capabilities and features than I could ever possibly use. I need something cheap, even expendable! Something that can be taken out on a boat and is no big deal if I lose it over the side or if it corrodes n the salt air.
The program I will write for it will be like the one I’ve written for my HP48 and my old Casio fx-7000G. It will prompt the user for five angles in dms format and return 2 real numbers. The math involves trigonometic functions and their inverses, and some x, /, + and -, nothing fancy. The program involves about forty lines of code. It will prompt the user for labeled inputs and return outputs with labels. It will also do some error checking and return some text error messages if asked to do something unreasonable.
I have spent a week on the internet visiting websites of firms like Casio, Sharp and Texas Instruments, but they all seem to be interested in selling me as much capability as I can possibly use for as much money as I can afford. Their specs are impenetrable and they don’t talk prices at all. I tried talking to some of their service people on the phone or by email and although they seem very knowledgeable about their products, they can’t seem to understand why I would want something cheap and simple. I just assume the more capable a device is the more it must cost, and the harder it is to learn. I am not a physics student who needs something to pass a Grad school or college boards. I just want a cheap, simple, robust device that’s easy to learn, edit, program, and debug. I also need something that comes with a paper user’s manual I can throw in my nav kit if I go sailing. If you have to download a fucking 700 page pdf manual to use your calculator, you shouldn’t need to have a calculator on your boat in the first place. You would already have a computer on board.
Can you guys help me out?