I’ve seen these guys floating around on various sites, retailing for around $40 USD, but that was always too expensive for something that I figured would be sub-par. About a month ago, I saw one on eBay for $8, new and in the box. So here we are!

This little guy is delightfully crappy! It is bad in ways that make me giggle and add a little something to my smile. I’ve seen a lot of people assume that these are clones of the fx-6300G, but they just use the same screen. If it is Casio firmware, it has been modified beyond recognition.

The first thing I found that made me laugh was how much this calculator loves the number 4. It will randomly decide that any button that you pressed was actually a mistake and you meant to press 4. Arrow key? 4. 9? 4. I feel like a two year-old with a jack-in-the-box using this thing. Oh! And don’t go typing too quickly, either. Sometimes it will decide not to register key presses that are too close together.

Its speed, accuracy, and precision are pretty close to the Casio fx-7700G from the early 90s. Even though it is graphing a very limited number of pixels, it still takes a while to output a simple sine wave. It can do integrations that are vastly more accurate than the busted ones that Sharps output, but they take forever.

I’m very happy to own this calculator, but I’m also happy that I spent less than $10 on it.