Is HP getting serious about calculators?
in [HP48]
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From: Howard Owen on 6 Oct 2006 02:21 Wayne Brown wrote: > I hadn't looked at a 12CP since the first ones came out, so after > reading your article I found a picture of the 25th Anniversary Edition. > You're right, it looks much better than the orignal 12C Platinum -- > quite a bit better than I expected. I still don't have a lot of > interest in it, because I never cared much for the original 12C, > though I give it its due respect as part of the original Voyager line. That was me all over. I bought my vintage first year 12C off eBay as one of the few pure collector pieces I own. I vastly prefer to play with my old calculators. The 12C is crippled as a programmable relative to all other Voyagers except the 10C. But two things have made me change my mind about the machine to a degree. First, it is the single most successful calculator in a commercial sense in history. 25 years for any bit of electronic gear is nothing short of astounding. That fact speaks volumes about how special the Voyager line really was. (It's also a commentary on the conservatism of business majors, I suppose.) Second, the limited programming model has paradoxically given rise to a library of wonderfully inventive software for the machine. Valantin Albillo, a name out of the glory days of PPC and of HP calculators, has written trig routines that will fit in a classic 12C's memory. He continues to publish interesting code for the Voyager line and other classic HP machines. Others are in the hunt too. Egan Ford just published a Gamma routine for the 12C over at the HP museum. Gerson Barbosa is also contributing interesting and elegant code. While I doubt anyone really needs trigs on a 12C, it's marvelous to see how the keystroke wizards do magic with the limited resources of a 12CP, or even a 12C. There's a third reason my interest in the machine has been piqued. The freebie at HHC2006 certainly got my attention. Looking it over, I realized that the 12C(P) is the only calculator in HP's lineup that comes up in RPN mode by default. Apparently, that's what the financial geeks want, so that's what they get. With all the dark days we have seen at HP, that fact seems to me to be one little ray of hope. There are others, too. As Gene mentioned, the new guy at HP is a genuine 1980s minted PPC member. His eyes do not glass up when you talk to him about keyboard quality and similar issues. Admittedly, that's a long way from actual evidence that HP has changed its approach. But it is another small reason to hope, in my opinion. Regards, Howard
From: Wayne Brown on 6 Oct 2006 12:25 Howard Owen <hbo(a)egbok.com> wrote: > > > There's a third reason my interest in the machine has been piqued. The > freebie at HHC2006 certainly got my attention. Looking it over, I > realized that the 12C(P) is the only calculator in HP's lineup that > comes up in RPN mode by default. Apparently, that's what the financial > geeks want, so that's what they get. With all the dark days we have > seen at HP, that fact seems to me to be one little ray of hope. There > are others, too. As Gene mentioned, the new guy at HP is a genuine > 1980s minted PPC member. His eyes do not glass up when you talk to him > about keyboard quality and similar issues. Admittedly, that's a long > way from actual evidence that HP has changed its approach. But it is > another small reason to hope, in my opinion. I hope you're right. But it's going to take a *lot* of improvement on HP's part, over a long period, to convince me. I once was a very enthusiastic HP supporter, and it took *years* for me to give up on them completely. It probably will take just as long for them to win me over again. -- Wayne Brown <fwbrown(a)bellsouth.net> (HPCC #1104) ??s ofereode, ?isses swa m?g. ("That passed away, this also can.") "Deor," from the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)
From: Veli-Pekka Nousiainen on 6 Oct 2006 13:28 Wayne Brown wrote: > Howard Owen <hbo(a)egbok.com> wrote: >> >> >> There's a third reason my interest in the machine has been piqued. >> The freebie at HHC2006 certainly got my attention. Looking it over, I >> realized that the 12C(P) is the only calculator in HP's lineup that >> comes up in RPN mode by default. Apparently, that's what the >> financial geeks want, so that's what they get. With all the dark >> days we have seen at HP, that fact seems to me to be one little ray >> of hope. There are others, too. As Gene mentioned, the new guy at HP >> is a genuine 1980s minted PPC member. His eyes do not glass up when >> you talk to him about keyboard quality and similar issues. >> Admittedly, that's a long way from actual evidence that HP has >> changed its approach. But it is another small reason to hope, in my >> opinion. > > I hope you're right. But it's going to take a *lot* of improvement > on HP's part, over a long period, to convince me. I once was a very > enthusiastic HP supporter, and it took *years* for me to give up on > them completely. It probably will take just as long for them to win > me over again Funny - now that the HP 50G is here I just love it AND iI'm still going to mention about the missing features: 1) EQW should accept Matrices, Vectors, Lists, etc and so should Command Line eg. {30 60 90} SIN @ Stack operation `SIN{30 60 90}` @ Direct Algebraic Execution :: SIN{30 60 90}` @ Delayed Direct Algebraic Execution and *** 'SIN{30 60 90}' @ Algebraic object using list as an argument 2) Units are still missing from the EQW, try HP 48G instead of the HP 48 GII 3) No TRUE Complex Polar Form (internally stored so) accepting units (5_V <) 60_o) 4) angle unit/mode "pi2r" is missing (pi is the small Greek letter 3.14...) 360_o = 400_grad = pi*2_r = 1_pi2r this would roughly "match" 1_Hz or 60_rpm being one full circle. A flag setting for this could be arranged 5) No Complex Solver that works in Complex Polar Form and is thus able to solve the angle if the other parts are know from (r1 <) O1) and (r2 <) O2) where the angle O2 is not known 6) CAS changes flags, but instead it should do so internally only and restore to user settings after the operation 7) CAS should not demand purging variables 8) Vectored ENTER back to operation in the Algebraic Mode 9) ProductLog or Lambert W-function as an analytic function 10) Bring the rest of the analytic functions, please (A)COT[H] (A)CSC[H] (A)SEC[H] 11) Naturally one also then needs the equivalent TRIG CAS commands ACOT2CSC, ACSC2COT, ACSC2SEC, ASEC2CSC COT2SECCSC2, COT2CSCSEC, COT2CSCSEC2, HALFCOT TRIGCOT, TRIGCSC, TRIGSEC, 12) and an appropiate flag to prefer SEC over SCS plus another flag set to use SIN COS TAN only 13) Fractional display mode (like on the 39/40) 14) two-stage CHOOSE (like on the 39/40) 15) more plot modes (like on the 39/40) 16) For easier Labke guessing SOLVEVX should compile to SOLVX SIGMAVX => SIGMVX 17) True 3D-plotting 18) If possible use ARM to put User Stack and/or return addresses or any other "invisible" RAM eating thing into separate address space to give more memory of the 512KB to the user 19) User should be able to set the UNDO/REDO levels as well as the CMD stack levels 20) put at least the "<)" symbol on the keyboard &%?(&?"!(/?
From: John H Meyers on 6 Oct 2006 16:20 On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:28:03 -0500, VPN: > now that the HP 50G is here I just love it > AND > I'm still going to mention about the missing features: > `SIN{30 60 90}` @ Direct Algebraic Execution Already present: `SIN({30,60,90})` ==> { .5 .866025403784 1. } `COS({30,60})` ==> { .866025403784 .5 } The commas (argument separators) are needed to override "implied multiplication" [in ALG mode] [<-] [CONT]
From: Veli-Pekka Nousiainen on 6 Oct 2006 17:08
John H Meyers wrote: > On Fri, 06 Oct 2006 12:28:03 -0500, VPN: > >> now that the HP 50G is here I just love it >> AND >> I'm still going to mention about the missing features: > >> `SIN{30 60 90}` @ Direct Algebraic Execution > > Already present: > > `SIN({30,60,90})` ==> { .5 .866025403784 1. } > > `COS({30,60})` ==> { .866025403784 .5 } Yes - as an example how EVERYTHING should work!! |