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toml_12953 · 11-08-2021, 04:29 PM

(06-17-2021 08:55 PM)Sukiari Wrote: NO physical buttons

I wouldn't buy a product with no physical buttons. I might as well run an emulator on my phone.

Ren · 11-09-2021, 02:33 PM

(11-08-2021 04:29 PM)toml_12953 Wrote:
(06-17-2021 08:55 PM)Sukiari Wrote: NO physical buttons

I wouldn't buy a product with no physical buttons. I might as well run an emulator on my phone.

Ditto!

Ren · 11-09-2021, 02:38 PM

(06-17-2021 10:39 PM)Liam Hays Wrote: One more thing: to me, I've always thought that the name "Prime" almost suggests something final. It's like it's trying to be the last product, the last hurrah of something that was once much more.

So "Optimus Prime" was the last Transformer?
(snif!)

KeithB · 11-09-2021, 10:09 PM

"One more thing: to me, I've always thought that the name "Prime" almost suggests something final. It's like it's trying to be the last product, the last hurrah of something that was once much more. "

Maybe they are using derivative notation: The next will be the PrimePrime and the one after that the PrimePrimePrime.
8^)

Seriously, the Prime is so upgrade-able, that you can change a *lot* with the same form factor and buttons. Python, anyone?

Peet · 11-09-2021, 10:22 PM

(11-09-2021 10:09 PM)KeithB Wrote: I've always thought that the name "Prime" almost suggests something final.

That's literally the last thing that comes to mind when I hear the term Prime.

Ren · 11-09-2021, 10:47 PM

(11-09-2021 10:22 PM)Peet Wrote:
(11-09-2021 10:09 PM)KeithB Wrote: I've always thought that the name "Prime" almost suggests something final.

That's literally the last thing that comes to mind when I hear the term Prime.

Now that you mention it, you may need to "prime" a pump to get it working.
The "primer" is the part of the bullet that gets the powder burning.
A "primer" was used early in the education process of children.
On TAS, if something is (truly) in prime condition, it will look worse as it gets used...
Prime Time television shows are before Late Night television...
I think I was in the "prime" of my life years ago.
B^)

dfberquo · 11-11-2021, 11:51 AM

HP could launch a new HP48G, with the same layout and thinner internal battery.
Her competitor, TI, still manufactures old models of its graphics calculators.
The HP Prime is a fantastic device, but I think there is room for a simpler calculator like the HP48G.
I didn't particularly like the HP49/50, especially the key layout.

Maximilian Hohmann · 11-11-2021, 12:58 PM

Hello!

(11-11-2021 11:51 AM)dfberquo Wrote: HP could launch a new HP48G, with the same layout and thinner internal battery.

They could of course, but would that be a smart idea? There are some die-hard RPL afficionados left on the planet (2/3 of which are members of this forum...) but I don't see any chance to win even a single new customer with that concept. And certainly not in times where Python is "the cool thing" to use. If I had to decide I would not put any money in such a project.

Regards
Max

Hlib · 11-11-2021, 04:05 PM

I spent a lot of money on HP products - it wasn`t just calculators. I am very disappointed in the quality of products over the past 15 years. The next generation of calculators are SAMSUNG smartphones with any applications. Modern calculators from HP are a degradation in the technology of modern gadgets.

Thomas Radtke · 11-12-2021, 08:28 AM

(11-09-2021 10:09 PM)KeithB Wrote: Seriously, the Prime is so upgrade-able, that you can change a *lot* with the same form factor and buttons. Python, anyone?

RPL would be a nice upgrade.

Thomas Radtke · 11-12-2021, 08:39 AM

(11-11-2021 04:05 PM)Hlib Wrote: I spent a lot of money on HP products - it wasn`t just calculators. I am very disappointed in the quality of products over the past 15 years.

I stopped buying HP printers after the 600, and that was more or less the end except some recent calculators like 20b, 30b, 35s and 15C LE. My GF still uses HP Pro laptops. They aren't bad.

Happy I got a 15C and one 50g last year at corona-panik-budget-price. Along with two 32SII, my favourite calcs, they are more than I need in terms of machines and features.

Out of nostalgia, a new RPL calc would be nice. It's still a superior calculator OS in many aspects. Claudio needs to port NewRPL to the Prime. Is it still in production?

PeterP · 11-12-2021, 06:01 PM

HP41 CL.

For everything else, there is Excel, Python, and Alpha.

John Keith · 11-12-2021, 09:30 PM

(11-12-2021 08:39 AM)Thomas Radtke Wrote: Out of nostalgia, a new RPL calc would be nice. It's still a superior calculator OS in many aspects. Claudio needs to port NewRPL to the Prime. Is it still in production?

NewRPL has been ported to the Prime G1. Still in beta I believe but coming along nicely, including color and touchscreen support. It is not possible to port NewRPL to the G2 without hardware mods.

The G1 is no longer in production but there are plenty available on the used market.

I also believe that RPL is a superior system and programming language but that is partly because I have been using RPL since the 28S. I also like Python which seems to be faster on the Prime than its native language which I like a lot less.

john gustaf stebbins · 11-13-2021, 01:44 AM

(11-12-2021 09:30 PM)John Keith Wrote: I also believe that RPL is a superior system and programming language but that is partly because I have been using RPL since the 28S. I also like Python which seems to be faster on the Prime than its native language which I like a lot less.

RPL would be nice on the Prime, but I'm not sure they system was seriously developed with postfix in mind. I've messed with the programming language enough to become accustomed to it and the early bugs that often made it unusable have been fixed.

What mostly keeps me from using the Prime for "big" calculation projects is the student environment: only having 26 variables, separate HOME and CAS, and so forth. If it had a more professional environment that would help: free form variables, integrated file system for data and programs, CAS functions available generally. Basically, reworking the Prime to be more 48g than 38g. This would require a bit of reprogramming, but could be done on the same hardware. I just need to be able to store functions and preliminary results to do problems that are more than textbook examples.

toml_12953 · 11-13-2021, 03:00 AM

(11-13-2021 01:44 AM)john gustaf stebbins Wrote: What mostly keeps me from using the Prime for "big" calculation projects is the student environment: only having 26 variables

In a program you can have hundreds of variables of varying length names. Just declare them as LOCAL.

LOCAL C4, bigname, thisvar, thatvar, TheOtherVar;

If you want to declare a string variable, you initialize it while defining it:

LOCAL MyString := "";

john gustaf stebbins · 11-13-2021, 05:39 AM

(11-13-2021 03:00 AM)toml_12953 Wrote:
(11-13-2021 01:44 AM)john gustaf stebbins Wrote: What mostly keeps me from using the Prime for "big" calculation projects is the student environment: only having 26 variables

In a program you can have hundreds of variables of varying length names. Just declare them as LOCAL.

LOCAL C4, bigname, thisvar, thatvar, TheOtherVar;

If you want to declare a string variable, you initialize it while defining it:

LOCAL MyString := "";

Yes, if you want to write a program you have lots of resources. That works for big problems that deserve a program. With the 48 to 50 series you could set up problems or solutions in a more informal manner. Being able to save a set of data and programs and come back to them is very important for professional purposes. With the RPL calculators I could set up many separate work environments and move between them as work and interests came up.

ttw · 11-13-2021, 06:36 AM

Perhaps, for those willing to use a phone (of course, without requiring network access for the calculator except maybe for installation or updates), would be an improved Emu48 with the HP50g capabilities (CAS, fixed up to at least Pari, conversions, equations, the periodic table, etc.) written in either native phone-chip or a high-level language like C or Fortran.

One would like Fortran 2003's version of array handling with the fancy list stuff from Lisp.

Access to big memory and a nice screen would be good (as would multiple skins).

It should still act as a calculator rather than a C or Lisp or Fortran or Algol2021 (if this exists) as these are not suitable for quick setup computations; they need some preparation to get started. (However, perhaps allow the calculator to call C or Fortran or Pari...)

EdS2 · 11-13-2021, 07:55 AM

(11-12-2021 09:30 PM)John Keith Wrote: NewRPL has been ported to the Prime G1. Still in beta I believe but coming along nicely, including color and touchscreen support. It is not possible to port NewRPL to the G2 without hardware mods.

That's interesting - I'd appreciate a pointer to any discussion of that. Needing hardware mods to support a language is just a little unexpected, to me.

**rprosperi** · 11-13-2021, 01:19 PM

(11-13-2021 07:55 AM)EdS2 Wrote:
(11-12-2021 09:30 PM)John Keith Wrote: NewRPL has been ported to the Prime G1. Still in beta I believe but coming along nicely, including color and touchscreen support. It is not possible to port NewRPL to the G2 without hardware mods.
That's interesting - I'd appreciate a pointer to any discussion of that. Needing hardware mods to support a language is just a little unexpected, to me.

To support the Exam Mode integrity, HP activated some features (available in the chipset) that prevent replacement of the firmware, which can be defeated via h/w mods.

John Keith · 11-13-2021, 01:36 PM

(11-13-2021 06:36 AM)ttw Wrote: Perhaps, for those willing to use a phone (of course, without requiring network access for the calculator except maybe for installation or updates), would be an improved Emu48 with the HP50g capabilities (CAS, fixed up to at least Pari, conversions, equations, the periodic table, etc.) written in either native phone-chip or a high-level language like C or Fortran.

One would like Fortran 2003's version of array handling with the fancy list stuff from Lisp.

Access to big memory and a nice screen would be good (as would multiple skins).

It should still act as a calculator rather than a C or Lisp or Fortran or Algol2021 (if this exists) as these are not suitable for quick setup computations; they need some preparation to get started. (However, perhaps allow the calculator to call C or Fortran or Pari...)

EMU48 for Android does support the 50g with all built-in functionality. The only limitation is that EMU48 emulates the Saturn processor, not the ARM. Therefor you cannot run programs written with HPGCC.

If you want "fancy list stuff" there is ListExt which greatly extends the list processing functionality of the 50g and is very fast. In terms of general-purpose programming languages it is comparable to Python's Itertools package or the data.list package for Haskell.

Other useful libraries/programs are GoferLists (similar to ListExt, older but several useful commands) and LSORT (orders of magnitude faster than the built-in SORT). Both are available on hpcalc.org.

Though not compatible with EMU48, Pari/GP is available on the Play store. I'm not a big fan of it's programming language but it is very fast.