Saturday, March 21, 2015

Caliber Scientific Calculator by CVS Pharmacy vs. Hewlett Packard HP 10s+

Caliber Scientific Calculator by CVS Pharmacy vs. Hewlett Packard HP 10s+


Last Friday, I just couldn't resist.  I was at CVS in Glendora, CA and purchased their Caliber Scientific Calculator, pretty much for its keyboard.

CVS Caliber Scientific Calculator
 Keyboard

On the surface, the Caliber Scientific Calculator is a basic level scientific calculator.  Notice the keyboard and its unique arrangement.  To see how it compares, let’s compare the keyboards of Caliber Scientific Calculator to the Hewlett Packard 10s+ Scientific Calculator.  They both share the same operating system, more on that later.
HP 10s+ Scientific Calculator

Shift and Alpha Markings



Shift and Alpha markings (Caliber on the left, HP 10s+ on the right)
On the Caliber (on the left), unlike almost every single scientific calculator, the markings on the calculator, outside of the number keys, are all one color: white.  The primary functions are in white, the shift functions, white, and alpha characters, white.  The HP 10s+ (on the right) have different colors.  Shift functions are in sky blue and Alpha characters are in orange.

Placement of Functions


Trigonometry Key Placement (Caliber on the left, HP 10s+ on the right)

Trigonometry Keys (pictured above):

Caliber places the [ SIN ] and [ COS ] on one row while the [ TAN ] key is on the next row.  Also noticed, the marking of the arccosine function:  Con⁻¹ instead of cos⁻¹.  Like every other calculator, the HP 10s+ places the three trigonometric keys in a row.

Alpha Characters:

Scientific calculators usually line up their alpha characters in linear and logical fashion.  Caliber defies this:

The B character (alpha of  [ ° ‘ “ ]) is placed one row above (!) the A character (alpha of [(-)]).  C, D, E, are on the next row (alpha of [HYP], [SIN], and [COS], respectively), and the F character (alpha of [TAN]) is on the next row.    

Apparently, CVS took the keys of the HP 10s+, or most likely the Casio fx-300MSPlus, and rearranged the keys with not much regard to the placement or logic of the keys. 

Operating System

Both the Caliber and HP 10s+ are clones of the Casio fx-300MSPLUS.  The three calculators have the following features:

* Fraction entry and simplification
* Nine memory registers (A through F, X, Y, M).  Storage addition and subtraction available for the variable M.
* Random Numbers
* Six statistic regression models:  linear, logarithmic, exponential, power, inverse, and quadratic. 

General information for the fx-300MSPLUS:


Manual:


(links retrieved 3/21/2015)

Verdict on the Caliber Calculator

Despite the unusual placement on the keys and the fact all the markings are one color, the Caliber operates well and expected. 

Eddie


This blog is property of Edward Shore.  2015

  Casio fx-7000G vs Casio fx-CG 50: A Comparison of Generating Statistical Graphs Today’s blog entry is a comparison of how a hist...