Prev: What is a library?
Next: HP 48SX & HP 28S for Sale
From: theofilis@macland.gr on 6 Dec 2005 16:55
Hello,

I am sure you have been fed up with these kind of posts but hey, I have
to ask.

I am a undergrad math student in UK. (And hopefull postgrad after the
end of this academic year)

I use mostly Matlab for my needs but it is really uncomfortable to have
my computer with me all the time. And (I do not know if you can
sympathise with me on this) when I am working on maths, I need to look
down, with paper and pen in hand. Not up on a fancy colourful computer
screen. It is my "concentration mode". Big computer screens do not help
me concentrate , they disrupt my flow of thinking :-)

I read all the comparisons between TI-89 and HP49 and I decided in
favour of the latter.

My needs are focused in symbolic operations mostly.

Anyway, I have some final questions that I would like to ask:

1)Lots of posts regard the keyboard and its quality and the quality of
HP49G+ in general . Should I be worried about it?

2)Taking into account that my main field is maths and not engineering,
will HP49g be able to cover my needs (at least up to and including MSc
level)? (Even if that meansthat I will have to rely heavily on external
software and not built-in.

3)Oh and realistic, real-life use, battery life??

Well that is all!

Thanks,

Kostas

From: A.L. on 6 Dec 2005 17:26
On 6 Dec 2005 13:55:58 -0800, "theofilis(a)macland.gr"
<theofilis(a)macland.gr> wrote:

>2)Taking into account that my main field is maths and not engineering,
>will HP49g be able to cover my needs (at least up to and including MSc
>level)?

Then, why do you need calculator?...

A.L.
From: theofilis@macland.gr on 6 Dec 2005 18:16
Mainly vector calculus, ODE and PDE solver, complex analysis, graphing
(especially in 3D), testing simple neural networks.

Kostas

From: A.L. on 6 Dec 2005 18:22
On 6 Dec 2005 15:16:04 -0800, "theofilis(a)macland.gr"
<theofilis(a)macland.gr> wrote:

>Mainly vector calculus, ODE and PDE solver, complex analysis, graphing
>(especially in 3D), testing simple neural networks.
>

There is little (if any) sense to do this on calculator.

A.L.
From: Han on 6 Dec 2005 20:47
I myself have not purchased my own HP49G+ due to the fact that to this
day, people are still having trouble with their keyboards. That is not
to say that every user has keyboard problems. As you know, this is an
HP calculator newsgroup. When things work, there is no point in posting
thousands of messages saying "wow, they produced a working calculator."
On the other hand, even so much as one calculator not working means you
hear about it on this newsgroup. My point is that you have to keep the
keyboard issues in perspective. That said, HP never really had any
complaints until the HP49G+. So the keyboard issues are real, and they
can be extremely annoying given that previous calculators have been
sooo much better in terms of hardware quality.

Now with that out of the way, let's address your other concerns. As far
as vector calculus is concerned, the HP48 (and probably 49G+) is
capable of list processing. Since symbolic vectors are essentially
lists of symbolic objects, you can natively create a symbolic vector,
and say differentiate or integrate the vector component-wise without
needing to write any software to handle such vectors.

The HP calculators are also very good at handling complex variables.
The HP49G+ also has a VERY VERY FAST 3D grapher. You can even rotate
the graph in real-time. I don't know too much about ODE and PDE
solving; it appears the CAS inside the HP49G+ is capable of solving
DEs, though I'm not sure to what extent.

As for simple neural network testing, that might be better left for
computers rather than calculators.

I recommend going to your campus bookstore. They will likely have these
types of calculators on display. Pick some of them up and play around
with them.

> Then, why do you need calculator?...

I am a math grad student, and I own 9 working HP48 calculators. Most of
them are for tinkering, but I do use them to do quick calculations when
I need to work out some easy cases in a number theory problem (just as
an example).
I also teach calculus, and the calculators are a quick way for me to
check my own solution sets that I hand out to my students.

 |  Next  |  Last
Pages: 1 2 3
Prev: What is a library?
Next: HP 48SX & HP 28S for Sale