Never thought I'd need a manual to learn to use a calculator, but turns out that using a financial calculator can be as easy as 1-2-3, provided you know what buttons to push.
I've recently bought myself a Texas Instruments BA-II Plus Professional financial calculator.
I preferred this over the HP-12C, which uses reverse Polish notation, and I'd rather do things in English, even if the HP-12C is more popular. The HP-12C is only fir serious users and for show-offs. Anybody else who picks up a HP-12C is first going to try a basic 1+2= calculation, which does not work since 1+2= is normal English notation! And of course, nobody will be willing to admit they can't add 2 numbers on a calculator especially when the people around turn around to watch you scratching your head to figure out why the function didn't work. It's also a great calculator to take into an interview, ask an over-confident candidate to calculate NPV, and then give him the calculator and watch the confidence fizzle away.
Anyway, back to my TI BA-II Plus Professional financial calculator (quite a mouthful!)- I like it. I'm using the manual to figure out how to calculate NPV, IRR etc, and big formulae are immediately condensed into a few clicks of the calculator's keypad.
I've recently bought myself a Texas Instruments BA-II Plus Professional financial calculator.
I preferred this over the HP-12C, which uses reverse Polish notation, and I'd rather do things in English, even if the HP-12C is more popular. The HP-12C is only fir serious users and for show-offs. Anybody else who picks up a HP-12C is first going to try a basic 1+2= calculation, which does not work since 1+2= is normal English notation! And of course, nobody will be willing to admit they can't add 2 numbers on a calculator especially when the people around turn around to watch you scratching your head to figure out why the function didn't work. It's also a great calculator to take into an interview, ask an over-confident candidate to calculate NPV, and then give him the calculator and watch the confidence fizzle away.
Anyway, back to my TI BA-II Plus Professional financial calculator (quite a mouthful!)- I like it. I'm using the manual to figure out how to calculate NPV, IRR etc, and big formulae are immediately condensed into a few clicks of the calculator's keypad.
2 comments:
Polish calculators would be much easier to use once you get accustomed to them, since you don't need to keep track of the brackets. I once wrote a post-fix calculator in assembly language.
Now you tell me....
:-D
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