Comment by tombert
2 days ago
Yeah I guess I should correct and say that I do use an HP 50G emulator on my iPhone cuz I like RPN.
But even still, the iPhone can do many things and is many times more capable, and you can buy a used iPhone 12 that works fine for about the same price as one of these calculators.
HP 48G(X) is the OG and what I took SAT-I and AP Calculus BC exams with. The iOS/iPadOS emu app is called i48.
Android app is called droid48
Nice.
Also, one of the major (unique?) UX innovations of the physical HP48 (c. 1990) was that it could beam apps and data to other calculators over serial IR or RS-232 with a computer. (A DIY computer interface cable could be fashioned from Sony CD-ROM analog audio cable.) Furthermore, the IR LED on the HP48G(X) was so bright, it could be software-controlled as a very long range TV universal remote, and there was a learning universal remote app that could learn codes from physical remotes by reading from the IR receiver. It would take fast and ubiquitous wireless networking (WiFi, BT, and cellular) c. 2003 before the app store concept would arrive generally for smartphones and other devices.