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I haven't seen someone this excited about a calculator since I was 10 and it was me.

I like the degrees-minutes-seconds-button. It's very useful when calculating time, you don't have to use it for angles.

Always hated that pi is a secondary function.

Man, I love this calculator! Got me through all of middle school and most of high school, and years later I still carry it around as a backup for my TI-Nspire. It is truly a mind-bending value, a serviceable scientific calculator for such a tiny amount of money.

Why am I watching a review on calculators? is this my life now?

As a teacher, it always bugs me that TI has such a lock on that market. Textbooks are written specifically for their calculators, students are required to buy them, etc.

Would you be interested in doing a "how to use calculators for electrical engineering calculations" tutorial?

I still have mine from the early nineties. The FX-260 Solar is an amazing little cheap calculator, very light, charming and pleasant to use; I love it so much. It's still great for situations where you can't lug a hefty HP around. The only sad thing is that going RPN is like becoming Borg/conjoined-you can't really come back, only pretend (badly).

My dad used to have an 1977 Casio fx-29 with the green vacuum fluorescent display, battery and mains brick powered. Beautiful to look at.

"I don't want a degrees minutes seconds button! Unbelievable! And the hyp button! Don't get me bloody started on the hyp button!" :D These two buttons did really save my life in an astrophysics exam, tho.

I'm an FX 260 Solar user since it came out. Great deal. Can't read the numbers on the one I have now, but I have the layout basically memorized after so many years.

You can sometimes get the segments working on old LCDs by heating the LCD with a hair dryer then squeezing it.

I sure need my stealthy calculations

In parts of Canada the FX260 Solar is still a requirement for people who didn't get a High School Diploma to take the exam. The GED Testing Service supplies training material based on this calculator prior to testing. The same calculator is supplied by the company at the time of testing. You can't bring your own. Casio must be envious of Texas Instruments that has a strangle hold on the Post Secondary Education System with their TI-84 Graphic Calculator being mandatory for many courses.

I think it was the old fx-260 that had this feature that I really miss on (all?) the new ones. You enter a number, hit "+" two times and with every "=" you get your number added again to the result. Is there any calculator still capable of doing that? It is so useful if for example you have to drill a couple of holes with same distance. No need to move the ruler while being more accurate when marking the drill spots.

At 5:35 when you typed pi to 8 decimals faster than it could display it....... I slowed down the footage and you LITERALLY typed pi accurately faster than it could be displayed on the LCD. Respect.

I do like having a calculator right there on the bench rather than moving away to another device and then opening the calculator on that.

aaannnddd... impulse buy. Had to order it with $25 total in my cart, so I just bought some more 3D printer filament.

This NF stuff seems stupid, just from looking at it what's stopping students from swapping out the boards? From the outside they are obviously the NF version but since the button is still physically there you can use that function no problem. Seems pointless.

I love how you can see the die and bonding wires under the glob on the newer calculator under the right light

When benchmarking with the factorial you forgot to first clean the solar cell of the classic calculator.

I do not like these modern lcd digits. Bigger, longer but thiner. Less readable and more confusing. Same for the font used on buttons. I do prefer the 80s style.

This I one of those crazy times where I typed in an obscure question about why they replaced this calculator and your video popped up. Thank you for your love of calculators. I hope it's just as awesome as the old one. I'm in construction, so I use the fraction key all the time.

Casio should really sell calculator apps that are modelled after their best selling scientific calculators. Most of the apps avalible right now are a pain to use, even for simple calculations. I would pay good money for a calculator app that works just like my FX-87DE X.

My Casio fx-82TL is with me for last 17 years.

I used an fx-260 solar all through high school and college - as in until just last year! I actually had two of them. There were actually two different fx-260 solars, both with the same name. The first generation I had used soft buttons, and the 2nd generation I got later had hard buttons and the chassis was slightly larger.

I've got a fx-300s that's very much like your Tandy. It must be 20 years old! I had to change the battery in it a month back as it would only work in bright light with the old battery. Being a machinist I prefer the smooth gray as it's easier to keep clean around cnc's. The numbers are almost wore off the keys from use. I've got the smaller form factor gray old Casio like yours but prefer the bigger older one.

fx-991EX is my cup of tea it serves me well (and it is quite fast)

Still have my fx-451M I got for school (will be over 30 years ago now), it still works, I even have the box and manual, but I believe the constants have been updated since then. Seems they sell for good money now, not that I'm selling. Prefer RPN these days, so I use an HP-35s.

The fx-260 has been my calculator for like 10 years... I dont think I've turned on my TI-84 more than a handful of times in my math work, it's all been the fx-260. Now I wonder what kind of nerd I am that I am enjoying reviews of pocket calculators haha I love that it does stats as a function. Ooooo that new one looks great

Dead serious the FX 260 has been my calculator of choice for at least 15 years. I got the new solar II because of this review and its just as great 😀

Thank you very much for your detailed review.

I bought a SwissMicro DM16L programmer's calculator and love it. I do a lot of embedded programming and it's so nice having it in front of me between my arms as it will do one button conversions between hex, dec, oct and bin. It will also gives you 1 and 2s compliment along with unsigned. It can check just about any logic operation you can think of. It's also a reproduction of an old HP calculator using RPN so it's win/win for workflow and geek cool.

The Casio FX 260 solar refraction was what I used in high school. Nice sturdy real calculator no batteries required.

Really impressive how much both this and the EL-506p pack in. The Sharp and the accompanying clones are more feature rich (hell, they even have complex mode!), I would like an fx-260 solar in my collection!

Everyone knows and loves the Casios but I always liked Sharp. The key layout on my ancient el-506d is almost ideal.

Dave, you are totally right on Casios. Definitely the best for EE. That fx-260II is about 8 bucks here in Canada like you say.

Well, I'm glad I know the min lux each of these calculators will run on.

SHARP EL-531WH: "9.000000099" (7 zeros) CASIO fx-991ES: "9.000000007" (8 zeros) iPhone 5: "9" (no decimals displayed)

Dave, I imagine with your vintage calculator collection, you append some AM audio sounds from early models. I had a slow old Commodore PR-100 that made great AM sounds just listening to all the shift registers on my radio.

I LOVED my casio back in the college days.. but I couldn't remember the model number; fx-260 solar. Thanks Dave!

Found a minor bug on the fx260II: A way to check the internal precision of numbers is to take a known value, and subtract the digits as shown on screen. This will show if any precision is stored beyond displayed value. pi(calculator constant) - 3.141592654 (as displayed) = -0.0000000004 (-4E-10) e^1 (calculator constant) - 2.718281828 (as displayed) = 0.00000000045 (4.5E-10) /\ This shows that pi and e are stored with 11-12 digits (3.1415926536, 2.718228182845), and they are correctly rounded to fit on display. Unfortunately... 1/6 (0.16 repeating6) - 0.166666666 (displayed) = 0.000000000666 (6.66E-10) /\ This shows that this displayed value has three extra hidden places of precision HOWEVER it is rounded incorrectly for the display. The displayed value should be rounded to 0.166666667 Why it rounds for one and not the other is unclear. The Fx115ES handles this correctly with a couple more hidden places of precision. The largest single-computation error I was able to induce with this method was 8.88E-10, and if 888 trillionths ruin your project, you should be using a different calculator.

My favorite Casio was the EC-4016, or the Radio Shack rebadge. It was insanely thin, solar-only, and full scientific. It was damn near indestructible, but not unloseable. I'm still upset that I lost the thing, it was my only calculator for years and years...and while I collect slide rules, a calculator IS faster.

My GF bought me new old stock CM-100 for birthday. Awesome calc, very useful for microcontroller stuff. I love it

Still have and use my CM100, came in real handy back when I was doing discrete logic design.

Excellent video.

I have a Casio fx-82 Solar (1) with plastic keys. And I have also seen 2 variations of the back cover for it.

The old-school wide font/type in the original model's buttons, and the thinner old-school case was much better!

Even though I only use the sin cos and tan functions ( i am a machinist by trade ), it is my favorite as well !!! I thought I was the only person that was in love with this calc !!! Small World !!!! .

I still have my FX-61F, bought it in 1989 when I was doing my BTEC National Diploma in Electronics.

I still love my Casio fx85m, such a beautiful little machine. Even still has the original cover and box!

Finally, the video I was waiting for.

Your recent videos have given me calculator fever, bought the 991EX, hoping to learn how to use it.

the FX-991 X kicks ass, there is no noticeable input lag, and the battery lasts forever.

I still prefer slide rule, not this 1970 calculator rubbish.

The Calculator Forensics RSKEY website Dave forgot to link in the description: www.rskey.org/~mwsebastian/miscprj/forensics.htm the asin(acos(atan(tan(cos(sin(9 function

Thanks for the review!

Still have my old fx-260, no idea how many years I've had it kicking around. I agree that I'll take a proper handheld calculator over using a smartphone (or PC) every time.

Please explain where are you using the xy function on daily basis. Thanks.

I do enjoy that calc. Though some might scream foul at my suggestion but hey, I'm an engineer and carry my TI-36X Pro around in the back pocket of my work slacks out in the shop or to meetings. I think its the shape that makes it really handle the portability side of things really well. AND.....its a TI that has all the PROPER FUNCTIONS on dedicated keys, ie. pi, e, i, x^, x^2, ln, log, trig and inv. trig operations and they fucked right off with hyperbolics and stuck them in the drawer (buried in a function list) where they belong. No one likes hyperbolics, not even Euler himself. And as true testament to the robustness and maths-centricness (is that a word?!) of the TI-36X Pro.....you have derivative and integral as a shift operation on dedicated keys. Hell yes. It also does list functions and matrices. Great vid Dave, absolutely loved it!

That screenshot of German Amazon by an Australian RU-vidr about a Product launch in the US by a Japanese company... Caught me by surprise xD

Interestingly enough I've got an FX-82 solar (FX-260 solar) with plastic keys and I get the same result with the forensics test as the FX-260 SOLAR II

I want one with a proper Hex pad on it (no sharing of A-F)... but can you get one?

I used a Casio FX-550 when I was in high school during the 1980's. Great calculator for it's day. Before that I used math table books. After the Casio I progressed to HP graphing calculators like the HP-48SX and my current one which is a HP Prime. Of course none of these are as great as my amazing Curta Type II Calculator (look it up) which I bought via an EBay auction many years ago. ;)

I actually prefer the TI calculators. I've had a TI-84 since forever and being able to run custom programs on it, and multi-line display, keeps me coming back. I'd prefer they used NAND instead of SRAM but whatever, how often do you replace the battery anyway

Great video. I have the original Solar as well. At your videos time index 14:30 you did the chipset test. My Casio fx-260solar came out with 9.000007164 the same as the Fx-260solar II. Perhaps you had entered the sequence wrong? I'd be curious if it was a button error or a chip differance.

Hate on a hyp button was golden :D

Beautiful Dave. I have an original FX260 on my bench, when the new model can be had in Australia for a decent price I will add it to the mix. VPAM and RPN make my brain go all mushy.

Hi Dave, keep insisting for Casio to bring back the FX61F, please!!

Great review. The older fx-260 Solar is made in 2004, week 15 to the best of my knowledge (not in 1990) and the newer one in 2017, week 47. Both are printed in 7 segment style. The WL mark on the pcb is more typical of the 2000s. And fx-260 Solar was released in 1996, in Japan, from what I have seen in Japanese catalogues.

Ah, the original Casio fx 260 solar. The one and only. Thin, powerful and to the point. I used it so much, some of my buttons are not conductive anymore.

Do any calculators use the FFT for multiplying and dividing large numbers.

If you leave absolutely all the light of the room, how many time the Solar II take to switch off?

What do you use the x - y register shift for? I know it turns 2³ into 3², but I don't see how this can be a daily used function?

Love reminiscing the 70s and 80s. I loved Casio. Had a couple with my first being fx-61. My last classic was a fx-5000f. I loved running mini programs on it. My newer Casio 9850 Graphing calculator didn’t last nearly as long. It just died for no reason. My guess is one of the components aged. Found others with similar issues online with no resolution.

i collect calculators and i have a lot of casios. i even got two of those where you said that they where expensive from ebay. one from a older lady which had written her name on the back of her old calculator and one from a guy. these are very nice pieces. this people have used them for years.

I smell an EEVBlog Scientific calculator in the future! Similar to the 121GW Multimeter.

The original fx260 was my go to. It’s so awesome you made this video. I’m debating on paying $10 for the updated model or paying a premium of $20 to get me beloved original hahaha

Long been replaced, but my old FX-82D is still kicking. The mid '90s batteries are still alive too. Cracking it open again, what's surprising to me is that the chip isn't potted, it's naked on the board. Was this common back then (early '90s)?

I have a Casio fx-82MS in a drawer. I haven't used it in like 10 years. I think I had to buy it from the shop at the university campus because I didn't have one for an exam. I do have to agree, the rubber keys from older calculators had a better feel than the hard plastic ones on newer models.

Why was there a cut @ timestamp 14:43 - 14:44 ?

Just when I though smart phones had killed the calculator, boom back interested!

I have the newest Casio that you are showcasing, it's brilliant, it's good for GCSE's here, it has a simultaneous equation option and it's makes some of the questions really easy

I wonder, whether a NF type could be hacked to reactivate the fraction function.

I have the OG 260, it came with a cover as well. You can see the slots on the sides on yours to receive it.

While my all time favourite will always be the HP48, RPN FTW! I am partial to the Sharp EL546 series for a smaller everyday use calculator. My EL546L model is still working despite the abuse of being in my work bag. For those who may also love the HP48, Droid48 for Android is really good.

Wow, I know you like the Casio calcs. Maybe obsessed? RealCalc is a great app, it has an RPN option, quite a few features and a few more for the paid version. I do use my HP 15C and I'll dig up my old 80s? Casio today just for kicks.

Any of the smaller ones like this with hex - dec etc...?

why dose it have fraction on it when it don't do it? Also where is the binary ??

Cool stuff. Thanks.

What's the "parallel" button do?

I bought one but my room is too dark for that so I had to return it and get a second hand one. There are no other new traditional calculators by Casio.

The dedicated 'On' key was the dedicated 'Off' key in the battery powered FX82/FX260 models. I always thought they included it so that they could keep the same keyboard matrix rather than redo it to make use of the extra key for something more useful. Never owned a solar powered model, but I often wondered if they would still turn on by pressing the AC key as with the battery models (or even if the 'ON' key was just implemented as a second AC key and would perform all of it's functions).

Did the sin-cos-tan thingy with my two main calcs. CITIZEN SRP-145T II returns 9.00002786 TI-82 STATS returns 8.99999997 What did you guys get? Don't forget to set your calc on degrees :)

My old FX-82 Solar I got at school (got it one year before all the class had to buy the bloody huge TI-30 eco RS) indeed HAD a hard cover, you can see the grooves on the calculator's side for it. Maybe this the difference between the FX-82 Solar and FX-260 Solar?

Still using my Casio fx-3600P from the 80:s.

Facebook 'f' button on SwissMicros calculator at 24:34! This company had foresight!

Nice video ty

Sorry, it was always Sharp for me. Sharp had "D.A.L" first - their equivalent of VPAM.. it was a godsend when doing A-level mathematics to be able to enter the formulas as written I still have my Sharp EL-546L and still use it regularly.. just cant get used to calc.exe :)

just read the comments and thought, I wonder if Dave would show us youngsters how to use a slide rule ?......ya no, a short one just for a laugh.....It will be far more fun than what's on the bloody telly