Is 50g good or crap?

[jebem]

Alvaro wrote:
Does that "HP-PPL" has a command something like "GOTO" so that you can jump forward and backword in a Programm?
Does that "HP-PPL" also make a heavy use of the Stack like UserRPL?

I would recommend to browse the other forum dedicated to HP-Prime...
There are some real experts there that can help You better than me!

HP-PPL, as a structured language, do not need GOTO instructions. I never miss a GOTO on HP-PPL. I spent my young years programming in machine/assembly languages, then in BASIC, and using GOTO as mandatory, but not anymore.

Stack manipulation is not the focus of HP-PPL language, as PPL is really a very high level language dealing with variables, not stack registers.
But don't take my word for that, put your question in the Prime forum and You will get your answers.

[peacecalc]

Hello Manolo Sobrino,

Quote:(edit) ... let's say I can't agree with this.

Okay, that is your opinion, but my machine falls two times from 1 m down to the floor (carpet and linoleum) without spoiling the display or the calculator frame. A normal calc has with that no problems although. But the 50g is a comparative heavy part so it could be more weakly in such situations.

Greetings
peaceglue

[lemontea]

Keep the comments coming. I don't mind even if they are not directly related to my 50g question.

I put in an order for the WP 34s BTW; I hadn't ever heard of it until yesterday from you guys!!!

The 50g versus Prime will be on the back burner (maybe back burner means a few days, who knows when it comes to RPN!).

[walter b]

(05-01-2014 09:50 PM)lemontea Wrote:  I put in an order for the WP 34s BTW; I hadn't ever heard of it until yesterday from you guys!!!

Thank you (although we won't get your order but just a little bit of it ). In a way, I'm a bit astonished that you didn't hear of the WP 34S so far since this forum is full of news about it for three years minimum. It's even mentioned by mighty Dave Hicks himself in his description of the forum sectors. Please tell me what we can do to make you and your group aware of that little powerhouse (I count on you forgiving me my small bias ). Thanks in advance.

d:-)

[lemontea]

The problem is simply that I hadn't visited this forum for years and only did recently just on a whim.

FWIW I am 100% sure that more people would buy the WP 34S if only they knew about it.

Now, bear in mind, even though I have not visited this forum for years, I have searched from time to time for RPN calculators. As I mentioned, I already bought two 15c LE (one to use, one to keep) and have also bought an extra 11c (my first HP was an 11c and I still have that one; both 11c are in my bank's safe deposit box, no kidding).

I am selling my 33s (actually on eBay right this moment; getting upwards of $60 and I don't really care, because I hate the screen and never used it; I saw someone mention it goes for $180, so we'll see if the auction luck comes to me today).

So anyway what I mean is, even with searching on eBay to buy RPNs and generally googling around, somehow I never came across the WP 34S. I even searched for non-HP units (I bought a couple of financial ones that were cheap clones of the 12C but used AA batteries; I think they are called Victor or something; still in blister packs somewhere).

I think significantly more awareness of the WP needs to be done especially if a new unit is coming out. Maybe get the word out in trade magazines, and especially technology websites that talk about geeks and hackers hacking on electronics, devices, etc.

(There's plenty of talk about Arduino etc. as I am sure you guys are aware; plenty of interest these days in flashing stuff, hacking stuff, repurposing stuff, etc.).

BTW I am using the super excellent i41CX emulator in my iPhone/iPad and it is awesome but nothing beats a real thing in your hand when you need to punch out some numbers. I guess I am old school enough to want to write the calculations down by hand as I go, maybe because I don't trust the spreadsheets not to have typing errors.

[Egan Ford]

(05-01-2014 11:02 AM)jebem Wrote:  You will not be disappointed with a HP-Prime

I have both the 50g and Prime, and while I am "not disappointed" with the Prime, I'm not exactly blown away by it either. IMHO, the Prime is targeted (rightly so) at the only growing calculator market--education.

The OP wanted RPN. The RPL in the 50g is a suitable substitute for RPN. Worse case if the OP needs true RPN on the 50g he can install the 41CV emulator.

(05-01-2014 11:02 AM)jebem Wrote:  On the other hand, the HP-Prime programming language is a much more high level, elegant, structured (despite being basic when compared with professional programming environments), and much more easy to learn than RPL.

On the 50g I have my choice of assembly (Saturn or ARM), RPL, and C (cross-compiled). I'd pick C over Primecal.

The 50g also has a RS-232 option (http://commerce.hpcalc.org/serialcable.php). This enables non-Windows users alternatives for I/O as well a general purpose I/O capabilities. Lastly the SD card is nice again for non-Windows I/O, backup, firmware upgrades, etc... without buggy Windows-only connectivity software.

IMHO, the 50g is HP's only still-for-sale pro-use handheld, uses batteries that can be had anywhere in the world, and it's platform independent (not tied to Windows). The 50g is also emulated and available on tablets, handhelds, and desktops. I know some of you here wear your 50g's on your belts (I've seen it). I will not go that far, so running an emulator on my iPhone is a good alternative until I get back to my desk.

To the OP, yes, I think the 50g is worth it. It's a great machine with a great display and a lot of fun to program.

50g's are $75 at Amazon. Instead of taking your wife out to dinner this weekend, get a 50g and make pasta.

[Egan Ford]

(05-01-2014 12:45 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I certainly wouldn't call the 50g crap, but while it has a number of advances over the 48, it's also a step back in several ways.

The small ENTER key *still* bothers me a bit when I look at it.

[lemontea]

But if I take the wife out and make her happy, I can buy maybe an extra one or two more RPNs without worrying about getting yelled at, no?

:-)

(Or maybe the yelling is a bit lower in amplitude and duration)

[lemontea]

(05-01-2014 10:44 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  

(05-01-2014 12:45 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I certainly wouldn't call the 50g crap, but while it has a number of advances over the 48, it's also a step back in several ways.

The small ENTER key *still* bothers me a bit when I look at it.

Probably if it had a larger ENTER key I would have bought it already.

And probably if the 33s had the same, I would not sell it.

These are crucial philosophical questions that probably the original HP team would have known answers to.

EDIT: Hey, what you wrote is a big surprise to me. The 50g doesn't have real RPN??? Or you mean the keypress is RPN but the programing isn't keystroke RPN? But that you can write in c language is very interesting to me.

[Egan Ford]

(05-01-2014 09:50 PM)lemontea Wrote:  I put in an order for the WP 34s BTW; I hadn't ever heard of it until yesterday from you guys!!!

The 34S (IMHO) is where HP should be taking calculator development--to the people. The 34S is open source, has both physical and virtual versions (iPhone too), and the development community is quick to fix bugs.

And while the 34S may feel like this:



it is a solid base that HP could take to make 3 or 4 feature calculators instead of using ODMs. It'd be easy to bring back the entire Voyager series thinking based on the 34S code.

[lemontea]

I totally agree there is a big market for such an open platform, but I think HP might consider that the profit margins are too thin.

However, note that profit margins are very high for Apple.

Thus, for a PREMIUM market, that demands PREMIUM QUALITY HARDWARE KEYS, SCREEN CLARITY, DURABILITY (for literally decades), then there is a strong case to be made (pun intended).

I am interested in how well the HP-15c LE sold. Maybe not enough for the company's priorities right now, but I actually think the calculator division is where HP should focus to gain BACK its legacy of engineering and quality and intelligence.

Otherwise HP is just riding with the rest of them to the lowest margin pit on commodity stuff. (Of course, I know technical services is a money making area but those technical guys also can use, and sell, tools).

Apple is the best example of differentiation and earning big bucks because of it. HP used to be like that. So, one can't make the excuse that it's too hard to make profits on hardware.

Maybe if more teachers used and promoted RPN, that would help. Apple used to have evangelists market to the education sector to get them to buy Macs (this was way back in the 1980s and 1990s).

[Egan Ford]

(05-01-2014 10:47 PM)lemontea Wrote:  EDIT: Hey, what you wrote is a big surprise to me. The 50g doesn't have real RPN??? Or you mean the keypress is RPN but the programing isn't keystroke RPN? But that you can write in c language is very interesting to me.

RPN and RPL have different stack mechanics. E.g. 123 ENTER in RPN puts 123 in X and Y. 123 ENTER in RPL puts 123 on the top of the stack (a stack depth that is only limited by RAM). As for programming, RPL is not keystroke like RPN is, but more so than Primecal. Lastly in RPL, any object (even a program) can be on the stack. In RPL you are always able to just write a small program. No fancy editor or program mode to worry about. The way to load or save a program is the same for a number or an equation. RPL, IMHO, is probably the most powerful, COTS battery powered*, interactive computing environment you can have in your hand for $75US**.

* I had to add this to avoid the Mathematica and/or J on the phone workaround.
** Also trying to exclude fancy software on a phone here too. :-)

[Egan Ford]

(05-01-2014 11:07 PM)lemontea Wrote:  I totally agree there is a big market for such an open platform, but I think HP might consider that the profit margins are too thin.

I do not think there is a big market for any calculator outside of education and testing.

The spreadsheet takes care of 90%+ of my computing needs and it is easier to define a model in a spreadsheet than to write a program for the same model. I'd speculate that most use a spreadsheet over a calculator.

My argument for the 34S and open source approach is that it's something different to try to identify other markets, even if its just a hobbyist market. E.g. look at the $25 Raspberry Pi. The ecosystem for that is massive. Put that in a case with 50 or so blank buttons, provide source to a model to 3D print custom keycaps and face plate labels, and you have yourself an open platform for scientific fun. Could be a calculator, could be a data collector, a keystroke robotic programmer, etc... IOW, there are *other* educational markets to go after.

Anyway, that type of thinking requires vision.

[lemontea]

We actually agree.

The big market I was talking about was the hobbyist market (seeded by education where possible).

And hobbyists grow up into (or came from) technical professionals.

The platform for the WP (or, ideally, an official HP sanctioned and supported platform and API) would actually compete with Arduino, Rasberry, etc. but the key benefit would (pun again) be the high quality of the hardware platform, combined with the open community software and firmware efforts.

Anyway this is dreamland and we don't get paid by HP for these marketing ideas....

[jracca]

I wanted nothing to do with the 50g, I loved my 48gx for those tasks, and 32sII, 42s, 41cx for numeric calculations.

Then I needed to do matrix math with symbolics, and the mighty 48 and 42 can't, while the 50g can. So I have a 50g now, I pretty much use it only for what I can't do with a 42 or 41... sometimes wp34s

[lemontea]

So, let me ask just to be sure:

On 50g

If I type 45, then press ENTER then press 78

is Y = 45 and X = 78
and if I then press / (divide), will it divide 45 by 78?
And then X = the answer
Then I type 50
and now Y = the answer, and X = 50

?

What about on Prime?

?

[Steve Simpkin]

(05-02-2014 06:52 AM)lemontea Wrote:  So, let me ask just to be sure:

On 50g

If I type 45, then press ENTER then press 78

is Y = 45 and X = 78?
Almost. Since there is an unlimited stack, the X, Y, Z and T registers are replaced by stack level labels 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. Also there is an unlabeled entry line at the bottom used to enter numbers (instead of overwriting the X register). With this in mind, what you will see with your example is that 45 will be shown on stack level 1 and 78 will be on the entry line.

and if I then press / (divide), will it divide 45 by 78?
Yes

And then X = the answer
Yes, except the answer (.576923076923) will be shown on stack level 1.

Then I type 50
and now Y = the answer, and X = 50?
Almost. The previous answer will be shown on stack level 1 and 50 will be on the entry line.

What about on Prime?
In RPN mode it should work exactly the same as the HP-50 in RPN mode.

I am probably making it sound more complicated than it really is. In practice I find the "Entry RPN" logic system used on the RPL calculators (starting with the HP-28C) works very similar to the RPN logic system on classic HP calculators, for manual calculations, with only a few small differences. There are other more significant differences of course, particuarly when it comes to writing programs and storing numbers. The calculator also understands many more object types than just real numbers.

See the RPL section (http://www.hpmuseum.org/rpl.htm) on the main exhibit page of this site for more information. The following post also explains some of the differences between RPN and RPL models.
http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/...read=87966

[jebem]

(05-01-2014 10:41 PM)Egan Ford Wrote:  50g's are $75 at Amazon. Instead of taking your wife out to dinner this weekend, get a 50g and make pasta.

I tried that approach with my other half, but no luck They don't understand us.
She looks suspiciously to me when I try to do casual conversations... women just have that feeling to uncover hidden actions committed by us, naive males, busy with our all important hobbies...

I confess: I'm a calculator collector addict.
Now I have to justify myself for unexpected expenses... let me see...
two months ago it was the HP-Prime, then one nice as new HP-49G+ for 35 Euro, then another irresistible HP-48GII NIB for 50 Euro, then a HP-30B to be re-purposed as a WP-34S SUPER RPN MACHINE.

And now I'm in real trouble to justify yet another buy of a niiiice CASIO FX-991DE PLUS German edition for just 33 Euro (this one has much more features than the regular European 991ES PLUS model, it is like a American FX-115ES PLUS) after promising to not spend more money on calculators!

I guess I am in debt for a lot of pasta dinners to pay off for all this! (I'm luck that she likes my pasta cooking).

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(05-02-2014 02:05 PM)jebem Wrote:  I tried that approach with my other half, but no luck They don't understand us.
She looks suspiciously to me when I try to do casual conversations... women just have that feeling to uncover hidden actions committed by us, naive males, busy with our all important hobbies...

Been there, done that...

(05-02-2014 02:05 PM)jebem Wrote:  I confess: I'm a calculator collector addict.

Who isn't hereabouts, to a greater or lesser degree?

[Steve Simpkin]

(05-02-2014 02:05 PM)jebem Wrote:  I confess: I'm a calculator collector addict.

It's not important. It's a minor compulsion. I can deal with it if I want to.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz0AWtwdoA