This was the very first scientific calculator I ever owned, many years ago. At the time I had just started high school and had only just been introduced to more complex mathematics where a basic calculator just wouldn't cut it hence why I needed one with more functions.

At the time, the calculator was about £10 from any stationary shop. I believe I got mine from WHSmiths but this model is now only available online, usually through re-sellers, as it is a very old model. It is now priced at around £5 and it can only usually be found used.

I was expecting there to be a huge step up in the complexity of the calculator when I was only used to ones with numbers and basic operators, however I got used to it surprisingly quickly and easily which helped me a lot when there were so many other things I had to get used to at the time in terms of my education - the last thing I needed was not being able to use a device which is intended to made my life easier!

The calculator had a variety of functions and modes, many of which I never actually got to explore, such as squaring, rooting, modulus, trigonometry and so on. However, the features on this device come no where near to the amount that are now available on later models. For this reason, people who are doing very high level mathematics may find that this calculator is not suitable to them as it doesn't offer the functionality they are looking for.

The display by today's standards is pretty poor as everything was in-line and functions such as putting something to the power of 3 would be denoted by "()^3" instead of superscript which we see on today's calculators. When you have long equations, all of these unneccasary symbols becomes confusing and can get in the way.

The battery life of this calculator is theoretically unlimited thanks to being both battery and solar powered. For the few years I had it, before it being stolen, there appeared to be no fading of the display which indicates it running only on solar power.