What would you like to see in a future HP Prime II? (HP Prime², HP Prime 2X)

[jonmoore]

(04-26-2020 10:08 AM)BruceH Wrote:  Last time I spoke to Michael from SwissMicros he said that a 48SX was possible within the RAM/ROM constraints of the ARMs available. The main problem is that the 48SX ROM has not been released for commercial use - only non-commercial - so Emu48 can't be ported.

And unfortunately, I can't see that happening anytime soon.

[John Keith]

(04-26-2020 10:08 AM)BruceH Wrote:  Last time I spoke to Michael from SwissMicros he said that a 48SX was possible within the RAM/ROM constraints of the ARMs available. The main problem is that the 48SX ROM has not been released for commercial use - only non-commercial - so Emu48 can't be ported.

I personally consider the 48SX to be the nicest looking of the RPL series but too limited in power. I would prefer New RPL running on modern hardware as in my post above, provided that Claudio could reach a software agreement as Thomas did with the DM42.

There seems to be little interest in such things at the moment though.

[BruceH]

(04-26-2020 05:48 PM)John Keith Wrote:  

(04-26-2020 10:08 AM)BruceH Wrote:  Last time I spoke to Michael from SwissMicros he said that a 48SX was possible within the RAM/ROM constraints of the ARMs available. The main problem is that the 48SX ROM has not been released for commercial use - only non-commercial - so Emu48 can't be ported.

I personally consider the 48SX to be the nicest looking of the RPL series but too limited in power. I would prefer New RPL running on modern hardware as in my post above, provided that Claudio could reach a software agreement as Thomas did with the DM42.

There seems to be little interest in such things at the moment though.

I went to check the newRPL SourceForge page to see what the source license was and instead got distracted by a commit from 3 days ago entitled "First demo for Prime G1". It's very, very early days - essentially a proof of concept for the flash loading/reprogramming but encouraging that something is happening as a Prime running newRPL would be very nice indeed.

[jonmoore]

(04-26-2020 05:48 PM)John Keith Wrote:  I personally consider the 48SX to be the nicest looking of the RPL series but too limited in power. I would prefer New RPL running on modern hardware as in my post above, provided that Claudio could reach a software agreement as Thomas did with the DM42.

There seems to be little interest in such things at the moment though.

100% agreement. I maintain two 50g's so that one is a dedicated newRPL unit. And for my money newRPL is reaching a level of maturity where it can be considered a v1 OS. Much as the 49+/50g hardware is fast by historic HP calculator standards (outside of the Prime of course), newRPL shows what could have been possible if the 50g hadn't been running on top of an emulation layer.

I'm pretty certain that SM could build a bespoke newRPL machine that would still be competitively priced yet offer far more than current 50g hardware.

I don't see the Prime returning to RPL (I'm not even sure that they will make a high end calculator again). If they do carry on the Prime line, it will no doubt have an even greater focus on the education market. I know here in the UK it's fared very badly as the CAS system meant that it was unsuitable for all but International Baccalaureate pre college education, and for higher education it was (unfairly) seen as a high/secondary school solution. The Casio ClassPad line is the challenger brand here in the UK (much like TI they produce both CAS and non-CAS flavoured solutions), leaving the Prime to duke it out with the 35s for pre University students.

Much as the 35s has a maligned reputation, it's easy enough to keystroke program the kind of things pre-university students need - better vector/matrix support, GCD/LCM, Prime Factorisation, P/R conversion etc etc, and with Valentín Albillo's excellent solver, it breathes a vital oxygen supply to the 35's stunted complex number support. It's sluggish performance may feel like wading through molasses but at least it's allowed in the examination room (and for a far wider set of subjects than US engineering examinations).

Back to the Prime, one relatively simple feature request I'd love to see in a revision of the Prime operating system is touchscreen support for the stack. There's a nifty little iOS app based of the 28s that does this and it makes most of the standard RPL stack manipulation tools redundant during normal use. Programming workflows obviously still rely of the old school standards but for real time manipulations, a touch based stack is far more flexible.

[Hlib]

I don`t mention an mp3/mp4 player or even a 2Mpxl camera with Sony optics. A much more difficult task for HP is to build-in a software-controlled 1000Hz buzzer with an alarm clock, so that students can wake up in time for lectures or at home (as it was sometimes done in basic computers 40 years ago) - I managed to do it myself in TI-83+ five years ago for $2 :-) But I would like to see a continuation from the hp-calculator-sound tradition in HP-Prime.

[Marco Polo]

(04-26-2020 10:08 AM)BruceH Wrote:  Last time I spoke to Michael from SwissMicros he said that a 48SX was possible within the RAM/ROM constraints of the ARMs available. The main problem is that the 48SX ROM has not been released for commercial use - only non-commercial - so Emu48 can't be ported.

IMHO (and i am not a license guru, so i am likely wrong) the ROM non commercial release might be a false problem: SM could provide the hardware running a ported version of EMU48, eventually with a kit (bezel+keys) for SX/GX conversion, but no rom(s) at all.
It would be in charge of the end user to procure and install the desired rom on the calculator

[Orome]

It would also be great to have a usable Connectivity Kit. The macOS version, at least, is unstable and buggy.

[jonmoore]

(05-04-2020 01:01 PM)Marco Polo Wrote:  IMHO (and i am not a license guru, so i am likely wrong) the ROM non commercial release might be a false problem: SM could provide the hardware running a ported version of EMU48, eventually with a kit (bezel+keys) for SX/GX conversion, but no rom(s) at all.
It would be in charge of the end user to procure and install the desired rom on the calculator

EMU 48 can be sluggish on all but the latest iOS and Android hardware so I doubt whether the DM hardware would be able to run it with sufficient performance. The DM folk could always specify new hardware, but they wouldn't be able to maintain the DM42 price point (they don't have the economies of scale to compete with the likes of Casio, HP and TI).

[Dands]

(05-04-2020 02:23 PM)Orome Wrote:  It would also be great to have a usable Connectivity Kit. The macOS version, at least, is unstable and buggy.

Totally agree.

[Marco Polo]

(05-04-2020 03:01 PM)jonmoore Wrote:  EMU 48 can be sluggish on all but the latest iOS and Android hardware so I doubt whether the DM hardware would be able to run it with sufficient performance. The DM folk could always specify new hardware, but they wouldn't be able to maintain the DM42 price point (they don't have the economies of scale to compete with the likes of Casio, HP and TI).

What about porting NewRPL to DM42 platform?

[jonmoore]

(05-06-2020 07:15 AM)Marco Polo Wrote:  

(05-04-2020 03:01 PM)jonmoore Wrote:  EMU 48 can be sluggish on all but the latest iOS and Android hardware so I doubt whether the DM hardware would be able to run it with sufficient performance. The DM folk could always specify new hardware, but they wouldn't be able to maintain the DM42 price point (they don't have the economies of scale to compete with the likes of Casio, HP and TI).

What about porting NewRPL to DM42 platform?

NewRPL is designed for embedded chips so it's highly likely that this will be a more feasible ambition - as John Keith and I alluded to a few posts back.

Much as NewRPL is in beta on the 50g, that hardware is simply the base test platform. The use case ambition is far wider than a chipset that's more than 15 years old!

[Manuel Cruz]

Good, I have been using my HP Prime calculator for a long time, and I leave you an article that I wrote on my blog about it, it is written in Spanish.
Experiencia HP Prime
Regarding what I would like to improve, well I do not know, I really consider myself in diapers in the use of this calculator and that I have compared a lot with others, and I highly value the interactivity between the cap and the cell phone, since I have my application to pay for the cell phone, and I love it. I am learning to program, and soon I will be sharing my thesis for an APP on MCI thermal calculation.
For me the calculator is quite complete and continuous in my line of learning, in this community I highly value the experts that they are, see you.

[Anders]

Personally, I want to see the prime platform move forward not backwards to some sort of "good old days" which were quite frankly not that great anyway… I would like to minimizing mundane task so you can operate at the conceptual level letting the machine do the mundane takes. Like in the past where you spent time on the wrong things, putting huge effort into: obscure programing, minimizing key strokes, using programming models developed for another time and much less capable h/w, where focus was counting # of bytes, minimizing # of clock cycles and fitting stuff into kilobytes of storage (and believe me I have done that). Trying to fit stuff within memory and CPU constrains is interesting topic on its own, but not if you are taking an EE, ME etc class in 2020. In year 2020+, you want solution solving productivity!

I want to see:
1. Completely different level of integration and consistency between CAS and Home view.
a. The move between Home and CAS should be seamless. Most of the time to day, I find myself doing lots of copy paste to fit the format on either side.
2. Ideally it should be ONE integrated view no difference between CAS and Home. In fact, there should ONLY be the "new" CAS view, but with a setting so you can turn CAS off (for exams for example), making it effectively the home view.
3. For this to work you need a more fully fledged and richer CAS, including the home view functionality of course but also specifics (like various transformations etc.) for the various branches of engineering and math. For instance: trying to solve a simple systems problem moving back and forth between time and S (Laplace) domain with a mix of unknown and known variables, and actual numbers, is just plain painful. It’s a good example because it includes Laplace or Z transformation, (potentially) solving multiple 2nd or higher order equations, partial fraction expansion decompositions, followed by inverse Laplace or Z transformations (potentially) also involving matrix and vector manipulations (eigen values etc) in the more general case. Multiple issues with today’s Prime (and I don’t expect a future Prime to solve it all in one go with one button – not at all). Today it is just too cumbersome: some can be done in CAS some has to be done in home, but moving between the two modes and transfer intermediate results is just too hard, so end up doing most on paper and just re-enter stuff. Of course you can write CAS program to do this but that is just the problem – you write programs to solve the home view CAS view inconstancies and lack of integration.
4. And in this new CAS mode, just would like to see simple things work, like:
a. polar coordinates conversion between rectangular and polar form with any mix of symbols (of course) and/or numbers
b. proper engineering number formatting like an ENG -> (that you can shift either way) button (and a setting) that formats all numbers into 3* exponentials: x.xxx * 10^3y so you can easily convert to milli, micro, nano, pico, … kilo mega, giga etc.
c. I can think of many more annoying small things… like how many key strokes certain functions take etc
5. Full python implementation of course (math and science libraries…)
6. A proper manual how to use it all to get maximum value out of all the functionality including special books by engineering/science branch (remember HP 42S, 48S, 28S etc. booklets)
7. Not saying I want full wolfram in a calculator format (yet ) but much more in that direction.

Just a few thoughts

[John Keith]

The Powers that Be have stated that the Home/CAS dichotomy is necessary for the Prime to be approved by testing authorities. Since education is the main economic driver of calculator sales, the smooth integration of Home and CAS will not happen. I have agitated for a "Pro" version of the Prime- no real hardware differences, just different case colors and no test LEDs- but I'm not holding my breath.

I believe that we will have to turn to the likes of Swiss Micros for calculators that appeal to enthusiasts and professional users. The HP of old sadly no longer exists.

[Anders]

(06-24-2020 09:31 PM)John Keith Wrote:  The Powers that Be have stated that the Home/CAS dichotomy is necessary for the Prime to be approved by testing authorities. Since education is the main economic driver of calculator sales, the smooth integration of Home and CAS will not happen. I have agitated for a "Pro" version of the Prime- no real hardware differences, just different case colors and no test LEDs- but I'm not holding my breath.

I believe that we will have to turn to the likes of Swiss Micros for calculators that appeal to enthusiasts and professional users. The HP of old sadly no longer exists.

I understand. But that as i wrote above this separation can be solved by a setting inside one joint environment (the user can the set a flag in settings to turn CAS functionality off - like exam mode that turns on a green LED light in front of the calculator case that the teacher can see), instead of like today, with two completely separate, incompatible environments.

[NetMage]

While I have not put too much effort into using my Prime, mostly because I don’t find it very inviting (I actually prefer the TI-Inspire CX) I am surprised no one mentioned units handling.
My main calculator is a DM42 and my second is either my 50g or more often an emulated 48Gx on my iPhone and those are pulled out for units calculation.

I would like to see a full RPL environment with unit handling on par with the 48Gx.

I don’t think languages like micro Python or Python are very good choices for a handheld programming environment which has a small keyboard. Maybe APL but not many would use it ?

[mfleming]

(07-11-2020 04:42 AM)NetMage Wrote:  I don’t think languages like micro Python or Python are very good choices for a handheld programming environment which has a small keyboard. Maybe APL but not many would use it ?

Agreed, regular programming languages are quite fat while APL is terse, expressive, and able to handle large datasets. But you could probably count the number of potential users on one hand

[grsbanks]

(07-11-2020 02:38 PM)mfleming Wrote:  

(07-11-2020 04:42 AM)NetMage Wrote:  I don’t think languages like micro Python or Python are very good choices for a handheld programming environment which has a small keyboard. Maybe APL but not many would use it ?

Agreed, regular programming languages are quite fat while APL is terse, expressive, and able to handle large datasets. But you could probably count the number of potential users on one hand

+1 -- which is why I really don't understand the whole "python on a calculator" thing, be it HP, TI or any other manufacturer. Even HP-PPL on the Prime is pushing it IMO. Keystroke programming and RPL are about the best adapted to calculators, which is but one of many reasons why machines such as the HP-41C and HP-42S (and HP 35s, although I don't care for that one very much) are so sought after today, 30 or 40 years after their release.

[Anders]

Yeah so the reason why Python is preferable with math and science libraries is of course because of it's richness and massive active community of developers extending the libraries.

In the year of 2020, I do not sit and program complex solutions on a calculator if I am interested in solution productivity (both in terms of development and usage). Doing so would be nuts!

In 2020, you of course do the development on a PC including debugging. You then transfer it to the calculator to solve problems in small form factor. The calculator becomes a problem solution machine - ideally! This can be extremely powerful. Wolfram is great but the form factor is not there (yet).

20-40 years ago we had restrictions on memory and CPU speed that forced us to use more efficient programming models and languages (counting bytes and cpu cycles), but today those restrictions are gone. Further, fast forward a few more years and those restrictions will be even like gone, gone. like irrelevant.

We need to move forward not backwards. Backwards to the "good old days" of stack based languages (they are called 2nd generation programming languages for a reason) feel like a hobby for retired engineers or some form of calculator archeology with extremely small market potential for HP - not professional solution productive in 2020+.

I thought this thread was about the future not the past.

[grsbanks]

(07-11-2020 04:05 PM)Anders Wrote:  I thought this thread was about the future not the past.

I don't dispute that. Nor do I dispute that there is an active community supporting python. What I do dispute is how suitable python is for the form factor that is the handheld calculator.

Agreed 100% that the best way to come up with a programmed solution for a problem is to code on something that makes code entry far more practical, like a desktop or laptop computer, and then to transfer the result to the handheld device. I do just that with the HP Prime. But remember that these calculators are aimed at the education market. You try bringing a computer into an exam so you can write something in python and transfer it to your calculator. Not going to happen, so you're stuck with the calculator and nothing else, making python awkward to use.