Got a Prime for X-mas, now what?

[Egan Ford]

Hello all,

We had x-mas early this year due to travel. I completely forgot I asked my wife for a Prime months ago. Anyway...

I think I managed to update the firmware (OS/X, Parallels, Windows XP, Connectivity Kit (fail), usbtool). After a bit of Googling there seems to be a number of Prime related sites emerging. Is there a favorite of this group? Where is there information not covered in the User's Guide? A wiki?

Thanks.

[bobh]

Just got HP Prime for Christmas :-)
>Strange to see CD physical media these days
>Brought my Windows 7 Lenovo up from the basement
>Firmware update!
>Shift->Settings->Entry->RPN
>Home
10 Enter 2 *
1: 20
So far so good!!

[Egan Ford]

(12-25-2013 04:06 PM)bobh Wrote:  >Strange to see CD physical media these days

Yes, I thought the same. I scanned the quick start guide for a download URL and also searched HP's web site (a poor experience). I did manage to find the User's Manual, but not the emulator or connectivity kit.

Initial thoughts:

• Build: I like it, thin, not too light, keys feel like other newer HP calcs. Still getting use to the cover/case. I keep taking it off and leaving it behind. :-)
• Keyboard: Colors hard to see under certain lighting conditions. I expect most will get beyond hunt/peck mode within a week and it will be less of an issue.
• Screen: Pixels. With all the retina this and retina that I'd forgotten about pixels. :-) The pixels are small enough to provide a great amount of detail, but not small enough to pull off antialiasing in text. I say, embrace the pixel. Pixels are precise. Some of the fuzzy antialiasing doesn't align well with the exterior of the device.
• Touch Screen: Nice. Perhaps I missed this in the User's Manual, but there does not seem to be a way to directly interface with the touch screen with PPL.
• Calculator: It is very familiar, very 50g-ish. Given the target market is education, and my lack of familiarity with TI products, I cannot criticize one way or the other. I do like that RPN mode is supported. And agree with others that RPN mode with CAS is not a fit. My only suggestion would be that if RPN is not supported with a particular function (e.g. plotting), then automatically put a pair of single quotes up when in RPN mode.
• Programming: I haven't started programming yet. I've scanned the User's Manual and read the code of others. I think PPL is better than RPL for students and most others in general. It's easy to think RPL when you are conditioned to do so, but for students that will most likely never program the thing again in the future, the PPL learning curve is shallow. I am amazed at some of the examples already given, esp. the 3D plotting and realtime interaction, and with such little code. I would however still like the option to use assembly and/or C. But, I'm on the fence with that as well because PPL forces an open source model. Then again with C there would be 1000s of scientific programs that could be ported to the Prime.
• Connectivity: I could not find anything in the documentation that would allow for lower level programming of the I/O port. BTW, my unit did not ship with the A<->B cable for calc to calc transfer. Probably only useful if you hang with others that have the same calc, and odds are that they will have one. I'll be trying to get libhpprime working on OS/X.
• Supporting Tools: Buggy would be generous. Windows only. I have not tried Wine yet, but looks like it works from other's posting. I however cannot find the latest version online to test.
  

Anyway, I'm more impressed that I expected to be after spot reading HP Prime comments over the last 6 months.

Looking forward to all the PPL books that will be written.

[patrice]

Quote:Touch Screen: Nice. Perhaps I missed this in the User's Manual, but there does not seem to be a way to directly interface with the touch screen with PPL.

Look at MOUSE in calc's Help

[Thomas Klemm]

(12-25-2013 08:07 PM)patrice Wrote:  Look at MOUSE in calc's Help

Is it because you use a mouse for the touch screen?

[patrice]

Quote: Is it because you use a mouse for the touch screen?

LOL

[Francois Lanciault]

Got mine 2 days ago. Very happy so far! Programs run roughly 120X faster than my HP50G.

Thank you HP and all those involved.

François

[Matt]

Mine was a Christmas present as well.
I also have a 40GS, 50G, 35S, TI-85 and TI-Nspire CAS CX.
I'm liking it very much so far.

[jebem]

I got my HP-PRIME as a birthday gift from my wife this month. 150 Euros delivered at home, bought on eBay Germany.

As a HP fan since my early days in school in the 70's (HP-55, HP-67, HP-25) when HP was THE right choice as a support tool for scientific and engineering calculus, I am really happy that HP didn't quit the calculator market for good and it is coming back now in great shape, no matter what other can tell.

The HP-PRIME is a future classic!
It is a terrific product, good for school students (primary marketing target), as it is excellent for anyone that likes and understand computer science, or just to have it in their collection!

HP, please keep the good support on it, validating and fixing the reported issues where possible.
And PLEASE start selling the calculator in the popular shops in the malls and shopping centers. At least in Portugal and Spain, we can only get one of these beauties by shopping online.
I don't quite understand the HP marketing strategy here, as CASIO and TI are selling their products in every shop to make sure the student teenagers and their parents can have a chance to grab one while touring around in the weekends.

[Kevin Ouellet]

Yeah I agree. Even in Canada the HP Prime isn't available anywhere offline. Online, you need to rely on Amazon (who charges over $200 for the calc) or Hpcalc.org ($130)

[eried]

... but ... but, market should evolve to online to avoid all the waste (electricity, shelves, slaves hating his/her job, etc) in the stores :/

[Kevin Ouellet]

True, but sadly, in North America, even in 2014, many parents are still paranoid about online transactions because they are computer-illiterate and will only shop in physical stores because of that. Even if other people or their kids try to convince them for three hours, the parents will just not listen, because they think that one second after creating a Paypal account or entering their credit card online, their bank account will be emptied and credit card bill reach $8000+ and the day after putting their home address in the shipping form, a pedo will come at their home to molest their kid. It's like how my mom spent almost an hour trying to setup a Nintendo Entertainment System when I was kid and took a decade before being able to program a VCR properly, except that news medias kept talking about the dangers of internet back then, which made them scared of even getting it at home (my mom didn't get me Internet until 2005 because of "safety" reasons and by then I was 18).

In addition to that, there are people who hate having to wait 2-4 weeks for their online orders to be shipped home, so as soon as their school teacher tells them they need a graphing calc they'll go to a physical store to obtain the item immediately. I myself hated to have to wait a month for my HP Prime to arrive home. I also don't like having to pay $35-50 shipping just for a calculator. My HP Prime was $130 on Hpcalc website, but with the shipping fees and taxes I ended up paying close to $200.

[eried]

well my parents didn't knew anything about computers! that's a good thing about third world hahah so I just used a $5 dial-up connection kit from a county fair in the school.

Anyway, this is a little off topic but I always think if you want changes, you need to start with some effort from you... like accepting the 3 weeks wait vs paying overprice in the store supporting an old school wasteful system. All my electronic parts (in little shelves) came from ebay, if I don't have the part I just put the project on hold until it arrives, besides: it is like a mini xmas every week from parts I don't remember ordered for old projects (vs paying 400% more per piece in the electronic store)

[jebem]

Yap, I also buy most of my stuff online these days.
(Edited to correct a typo)

Coming back to the topic, I have got a HP-PRIME, now what?
Well, I realized that my humble calculator collection is missing many of the so famous (and less buggy) models, so I just acquired three another HP models from the recent past:

- One mint, as new, HP-48GII (4 x AAA battery version (!), with USB i/o), s/n CNA73800903 (2007 week 38?), for 50 Euros (Portuguese web site OLX.PT, person to person private sale, no waiting times on delivery here ); the keyboard looks good and works flawlessly, I see no issues related to the initial batches that had reports on broken keys from a lot a people.

- One used, mint (I hope!) HP-49G+, serial number CNA53000403 (2005, week 30), for 35 Euros including delivery to Portugal (from Spanish web site "todocoleccion.net" auction); again, I will find out about the keyboard quality when it arrives (I can't wait!); from what I have read, there were 3 different generations of keyboards on these HP-49G+ calculators, and apparently only the latest and final batches had a good resistant keyboard, starting on s/n CNA515... This was never confirmed by HP, so we don't know what is the true behind this).

- One used, 2 years old, mint (again, I can only hope!) HP-50G, in black color, for 70 Euros including delivery to Portugal (from eBay Germany auction); I'm counting the days to have this baby in my hands to find out how close it is to my trusted and classic HP-48G+; I am a little annoyed on the price I had to pay for it, as usually the auction values never goes above 45/50 Euros for a mint item in Germany (that is why I buy so many staff there). After bidding about 3 or 4 different HP-50G items during two weeks, I decided that this one should be mine! So I used the sniper technique to make sure I would win the auction, and I did...

[StephenG1CMZ]

(02-19-2014 11:07 PM)jebem Wrote:  Yap, I also buy most of my staff online these days.

Coming back to the topic, I have got a HP-PRIME, now what?
Well, I realized that my humble calculator collection is missing many of the so famous (and less buggy) models, so I just acquired three another HP models from the recent past:

- One mint, as new, HP-48GII (4 x AAA battery version (!), with USB i/o), s/n CNA73800903 (2007 week 38?), for 50 Euros (Portuguese web site OLX.PT, person to person private sale, no waiting times on delivery here ); the keyboard looks good and works flawlessly, I see no issues related to the initial batches that had reports on broken keys from a lot a people.

- One used, mint (I hope!) HP-49G+, serial number CNA53000403 (2005, week 30), for 35 Euros including delivery to Portugal (from Spanish web site "todocoleccion.net" auction); again, I will find out about the keyboard quality when it arrives (I can't wait!); from what I have read, there were 3 different generations of keyboards on these HP-49G+ calculators, and apparently only the latest and final batches had a good resistant keyboard, starting on s/n CNA515... This was never confirmed by HP, so we don't know what is the true behind this).

- One used, 2 years old, mint (again, I can only hope!) HP-50G, in black color, for 70 Euros including delivery to Portugal (from eBay Germany auction); I'm counting the days to have this baby in my hands to find out how close it is to my trusted and classic HP-48G+; I am a little annoyed on the price I had to pay for it, as usually the auction values never goes above 45/50 Euros for a mint item in Germany (that is why I buy so many staff there). After bidding about 3 or 4 different HP-50G items during two weeks, I decided that this one should be mine! So I used the sniper technique to make sure I would win the auction, and I did...

I think perhaps you mean "buy so much stuff" - "buy so many staff" means something quite different.

[Han]

(10-01-2015 05:01 PM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I think perhaps you mean "buy so much stuff" - "buy so many staff" means something quite different.

I wonder if he was typing on a smart phone that "smartly" (i.e. not) autocorrected the words.

[StephenG1CMZ]

(10-01-2015 06:22 PM)Han Wrote:  

(10-01-2015 05:01 PM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I think perhaps you mean "buy so much stuff" - "buy so many staff" means something quite different.

I wonder if he was typing on a smart phone that "smartly" (i.e. not) autocorrected the words.

Perhaps, but one would have thought buying stuff was the more commonplace substitution to make. But I have had some near-calamities with auto correct I on myself. See what I mean?

(Now, where can I leave this so the hint about getting a Prime for Christmas will be seen?)

[xset]

I think HP Prime needs Engineering Edition with SD Card support, serial port (IR optional), may be built-in GSM,3G,LTE,Wifi,bluetooth,camera,mic and no bloody exam mode! Allowed to run machine code and open software architecture. If you can make phone calls from digital camera, tablets WHY not calculator hendheld ??? You could process data and send it by Internet, discuss something using video calls on nice color screen. I'd buy smarphone in form of HP calculator, I swear :-)

[jebem]

(02-19-2014 11:07 PM)jebem Wrote:  Yap, I also buy most of my stuff online these days.
(Edited to correct a typo)

Coming back to the topic, I have got a HP-PRIME, now what?
Well, I realized that my humble calculator collection is missing many of the so famous (and less buggy) models, so I just acquired three another HP models from the recent past:

- One mint, as new, HP-48GII (4 x AAA battery version (!), with USB i/o), s/n CNA73800903 (2007 week 38?), for 50 Euros (Portuguese web site OLX.PT, person to person private sale, no waiting times on delivery here ); the keyboard looks good and works flawlessly, I see no issues related to the initial batches that had reports on broken keys from a lot a people.

- One used, mint (I hope!) HP-49G+, serial number CNA53000403 (2005, week 30), for 35 Euros including delivery to Portugal (from Spanish web site "todocoleccion.net" auction); again, I will find out about the keyboard quality when it arrives (I can't wait!); from what I have read, there were 3 different generations of keyboards on these HP-49G+ calculators, and apparently only the latest and final batches had a good resistant keyboard, starting on s/n CNA515... This was never confirmed by HP, so we don't know what is the true behind this).

- One used, 2 years old, mint (again, I can only hope!) HP-50G, in black color, for 70 Euros including delivery to Portugal (from eBay Germany auction); I'm counting the days to have this baby in my hands to find out how close it is to my trusted and classic HP-48G+; I am a little annoyed on the price I had to pay for it, as usually the auction values never goes above 45/50 Euros for a mint item in Germany (that is why I buy so many staff there). After bidding about 3 or 4 different HP-50G items during two weeks, I decided that this one should be mine! So I used the sniper technique to make sure I would win the auction, and I did...

[xset]

(10-02-2015 10:12 AM)jebem Wrote:  Coming back to the topic, I have got a HP-PRIME, now what?
Well, I realized that my humble calculator collection is missing many of the so famous (and less buggy) models, so I just acquired three another HP models from the recent past:

God! I found a soul mate. I bought all good models of modern calculators, including TI and Casio. As for HP, i have two HP 50g of different color, HP 48gx, HP 35s, and now HP Prime. HP 50g is most beloved 'cause it: powerful, highly highly customizable and allows to execute machine code, there is SDK which gives close integration.

In comparison HP Prime is very cool-looking and slim (except lousy color scheme for labels). Touch screen turned out to be good idea. It has much potential, but it has closed architecture because of damed exam mode, they throw out beeper, SD card support and serial port :-( Customization is under BIG question. I am trying to write some add-ons but they are not even close to HP 50g features :-(