Nifty Stuff…Sharp EL-506WBBK Calculator

In the geekverse, there was a time in the 80s when you could find several models of calculators that were helpful to computer programmers. This is when RAM was measured in tens of kilobytes (kibibytes), not hundreds of megabytes (mebibytes), and just about everyone needed to know at least some assembly language. The godsend for having to run scores of number base conversions was the programmer’s calculator.

How times have changed. Modern geeks use either their computer, a PDA, or a programmable calculator. But what if you simply want a low-cost portable device that will do number-base conversions? I’ve found two. One, an offering by Texas Instruments, is a nifty little device–unfortunately, its power source is only solar powered, so you need to be in a well-lit room (which experience has shown to be more problematic than you’d first suppose). The other, the Sharp EL-506WBBK Scientific calculator offers both solar and battery power…even in dim light, works like a champ.

The list of features on this well-endowed piece of electronics are too numerous to list here: somewhere in the neighborhood of 440 functions (give-or-take…it depends on the source of the stats). Admittedly, you will need the instruction sheet to use some of the more esoteric selections, but the calculator is robust and, more importantly to me, an aid to the programmers still among us.

I use this as my primary general-purpose calculator and have just ordered a second one to throw in my backpack. To anyone who needs to convert between decimal, binary, pental, octal, or hexadecimal, this is definitely the calculator for you. It’s even cool if you need to add up times, e.g. when compiling a CD or DVD. For a low-cost scientific calculator that is on a very short list of also being useful for programmers, this product is very highly recommended.