i have a t-83 scientific calculator, but i was told by my finance professor that i would need a financial calculator. i looked at what my t-83 can do, and it says business and finance. would that calculator be ok to use as oppose to buying a different calculator?
what is the major difference between a scientific calculator and a financial calculator?
March 14th, 2010 by Leave a reply »
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The financial calculator can do, with a touch of a button, all interest calculations for a payment stream of regular payments, and can approximate the interest rate if only the payments and present value are given. While it is possible to do this with any calculator, the financial ones save you considerable time.
You must buy a calculator that has “interest rate functions” and “loan calculation functions”.
The TI Ba-35 solar as well as the HP-12C calculators have these functions. This is not an endorsement though. There may be others.
Just make sure there is a “PMT”, “PV”, “calculate i”, “FV” and “N” (number of payments) buttons on your calculator (or the equivalent).
I just checked the web. The TI-83 does NOT have the financial functions needed for a finance course.
While it is true you can do these problems by setting up geometric series or using Newton’s method, that would be like computing the logarithm with tables while your friends are racing ahead with calculators!
HTH
ti-83 would be ok. and great for buisness applications
Michael T. said the magic words, “touch of a button”
A scientific calculator is capable of performing all of the basic operations that you need for financial calculations: It can add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and it can compute exponentials and logarithms. The difference is that the financial calculator is pre-programmed with many different business algorithms (e.g., to compute compound interest payments), and they can be invoked, as Michael said, with just a touch of a button.
You can do everything financial with the Scientific calculator (You can do everything with pencil and paper and a book of logarithms for that matter), but you can do it faster with the purpose-built calculator.