The Casio fx-61F Power System

I have owned a Casio fx-61F calculator for about 10 years now and during this time I still haven’t changed the original batteries. One of the main reasons for this is the fx-61F also uses solar power.

The Casio fx-61F uses the C-POWER system and one of the main advantages of this system is that it will still operate in full darkness.

This system uses an amorphous solar cell, as well as a lithium battery – GR927.

The Auto Power OFF function is very helpful and helps save battery power.

Auto Power OFF means that the Casio fx-61F will automatically turn itself off after about 6 minutes of the calculator not being used.

This is one of the ‘fx’ series of calculators from Casio.

The fx are scientific calculators.

The Casio fx-61F is a very useful calculator which has many helpful functions.

A good manual is included when you buy this calculator.

I originally purchased this calculator because I was doing a couple of electronics courses and I thought the fx-61F had everything I needed.

The fx-61F has 27 built-in Electrical formulas which are very easy to use and you can even add your own.

Image.

Keys

You can easily convert between Decimal, Binary, Hexadecimal and Octal, special keys are used for A B C D E F.

All the normal keys are available like + – x ÷ =, 0123456789, C, AC (All Clear Key) as well as many additional keys. The fx-61F even has a ‘backspace‘ key.

Here are some keys that are available on this calculator:

Shift
Log
ENG
In
hyp
tan
sin
cos
MR
M+

The above is a bit misleading because many of the keys have more than one function.

In the manual that comes with the fx-61F they use this example:

The Sin key when pressed by itself performs the sin function.
But when in BASE-N mode and you press the Sin key then the HEX specification is performed. If you press down the Shift key and the Sin key then the sin-1 is performed.

Modes

RUN Used for the built-in formulas and scientific calculations
LRN Learn
0 COMP Compute
1 BASE-N
2 IMP Impedance
3 SD Standard Deviation
4 DEG Degrees
5 RAD Radians
6 GRAD Grads
7 FIX Number of decimal places
8 SCI Number of significant places
9 NORM Normal

Mode 7 – FIX MODE Example

Press the Mode key.
Then press the 7 key.
And next press the 2 key to specify 2 decimal places.
Example: 4734.00

The fx-61F Digital Display

M K hyp LRN BASE-N IMP SD FMLA  D  R  G  FIX SCI Pro ~ j
S M
a=   -1.2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 -04

Above is a rough idea of what the fx-61F display looks like.

For the small amount of space available, the digital display shows a large amount of information, this must have taken many hours of serious thinking before Casio came up with the finished product.
As a home calculator you couldn’t go wrong with the fx-61F, the easy readable digital display and the basic functions are all you should need for the basic home budget. And if the need ever arises and you need more power then the fx-61F will come to the rescue.

Small characters are easily read and after a short amount of time you should have no trouble getting used to all the characters that are shown and what they mean.

Is the fx-61F still available?

I really have no idea, but be sure to ask your local Radio Shack, Dick Smith Electronics, David Reid or any other electronics shop as well as any place where you can get decent calculators.
If you find a used fx-61F for sale I suggest you grab it, someone in your family is sure to find it useful.
In our home my wife uses the fx-61F for our home budget, my teenage daughter uses it for her school work  and I use it as well for electronics.
I would easily go as far as saying that the Casio fx-61F is the best calculator I have ever used and I hope it still has many years left.

All the best from
James M Sandbrook.
Thursday 27th December 2001.