A new HP-67 Simulator for the iPhone

[Willy R. Kunz]

I know, I know... I used to say that RPN-67 Pro for the iPad couldn't be adapted for the iPhone in any reasonable way. I've proven myself wrong.

After some gentle prodding by a physicist at CERN claiming that many of his colleagues were using RPN-67 Pro and how they would love to have the app on their iPhones, I decided to give it a try.

The result? A surprise, at least to me. RPN-67 SD is more useful than I was hoping it would be. The full power of RPN-67 Pro on a pocketable device, even running fine on the iPhone 4s.

For anyone interested: check out RPN-67 SD on the iTunes store. Or on my homepage.

Glad to help those guys at CERN find their next particle... ;-)

[rprosperi]

(05-04-2016 01:23 PM)Willy R. Kunz Wrote:  ...The full power of RPN-67 Pro on a pocketable device, even running fine on the iPhone 4s.

Glad to help those guys at CERN find their next particle... ;-)

Awesome Willy! As an android user, I remain jealous...

Anything that helps the CERN team is something very cool to be proud of!

[PANAMATIK]

(05-04-2016 01:23 PM)Willy R. Kunz Wrote:  The full power of RPN-67 Pro on a pocketable device, even running fine on the iPhone 4S

I tried to buy your jewel. But got the message IOS 8.0 or higher is required. I dont upgrade since IOS 7 because it slows down the 4S. Sigh.... I have to wait until my next iPhone.

Bernhard

[Willy R. Kunz]

(05-04-2016 06:07 PM)PANAMATIK Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 01:23 PM)Willy R. Kunz Wrote:  The full power of RPN-67 Pro on a pocketable device, even running fine on the iPhone 4S

I tried to buy your jewel. But got the message IOS 8.0 or higher is required. I dont upgrade since IOS 7 because it slows down the 4S. Sigh.... I have to wait until my next iPhone.

Bernhard

Sorry about that. I'm still trying to keep my iPad apps compatible with iOS 6, but it's getting harder and harder (a lot of if..then..else's in the code.) Apple doesn't even provide simulators for iOS 7 in their development environment anymore. So I decided to make my life not unnecessarily hard and stick to what is being supported right now.
By the way, while RPN-67 SD does indeed run on an iPhone 4s, it's not what I would call a jewel. The obsolete aspect ratio of the 4s makes everything look squished.
But thanks for trying anyway.

Willy

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Got it, as I have the original printed manual, the Quick Reference Guide and the Addendum — but no (real) HP-67 yet. It looks very nice, except for the missing decimal point with medium and maximum enhancements. Anyway, Vintage HP-67 is just fine with high-speed on.

Gerson.

[bshoring]

Willy, I think you outdid yourself.........Again.

It's a beauty. I'm impressed with how you fit all that on the limited real estate of the iPhone.

[Willy R. Kunz]

(05-04-2016 11:16 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  It looks very nice, except for the missing decimal point with medium and maximum enhancements.

Gerson.

Ouch! Sorry for that. A missing comma, actually. Seems I mixed up some code relating to regions using a comma as decimal point. A fix is on the way.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(05-05-2016 05:30 PM)Willy R. Kunz Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 11:16 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  It looks very nice, except for the missing decimal point with medium and maximum enhancements.

Gerson.

A missing comma, actually. Seems I mixed up some code relating to regions using a comma as decimal point.

The commas do show up in the printer output, however:

_______________________

Pi
ENT↑
ENT↑
ENT↑
×
+
×
+
×
+
X²
16,00000000 ENT↑
3,000000000 1/X
Yˣ
1,000000000 eˣ
+
9,000000000 ×
32,00000000 ÷
−
20000,00000 ***
20000,00000 −
6,184563972-11 ***
______________________

High accuracy is another great feature, not to mention the printer and the card reader, BTW.

I assume the radix is selected automatically according to the user's region. That's a nice feature, as long as the user is allowed to change it occasionally, perhaps by means of an expanded decimal point selection box ( | . | , |Auto| ). Anyway, the choice between period and comma was not offered by the original HP-67, as far as I know.

I know the HP-67 had not constant memory and FIX 2 was the initial display mode, but it's annoying to manually changing to FIX 9 (ok, just two keystrokes, DSP 9, but annoying just the same). Would it be possible to save the display mode? By the way, that's a feature I dislike very much on the HP-45 (that's why I like my HP-35 better). FIX 2 is fine only on financial calculators. The default FIX 4 on later calculators is only slightly better, but that was not a problem on my first HP calculator, the HP-15C, as the continuous memory preserves the display mode. I guess this was originally intended to save battery life in the LED calculators, but somehow this ended up going to the LCD calculators as well.

Thanks for yet another great simulator!

Gerson.

[Dieter]

(05-06-2016 07:37 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  I assume the radix is selected automatically according to the user's region. That's a nice feature, as long as the user is allowed to change it occasionally, perhaps by means of an expanded decimal point selection box ( | . | , |Auto| ). Anyway, the choice between period and comma was not offered by the original HP-67, as far as I know.

Right. This was not required as the decimal marker occupied a whole display digit, cf. this picture. Since there also was no thousands separator the display was unambiguous in any region of the world. ;-)

So if an emulator precisely emulates a real HP67's display there is no need for switching between comma and period.

Dieter

[Willy R. Kunz]

(05-06-2016 07:37 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  I know the HP-67 had not constant memory and FIX 2 was the initial display mode, but it's annoying to manually changing to FIX 9 (ok, just two keystrokes, DSP 9, but annoying just the same). Would it be possible to save the display mode?

Not sure what you mean here. RPN-67 SD saves the display mode automatically, except in vintage mode, of course. Additionally, in any mode, loading a program from a card sets up the calculator to whatever is appropriate for the program. This includes the display mode, the "trig mode" (deg, rad, grad) and the flags F0..F3. Just like the real HP-67.

Quote:Thanks for yet another great simulator!

Gerson.

You're welcome. It was fun creating it.

[Willy R. Kunz]

(05-06-2016 09:43 PM)Dieter Wrote:  

(05-06-2016 07:37 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  I assume the radix is selected automatically according to the user's region. That's a nice feature, as long as the user is allowed to change it occasionally, perhaps by means of an expanded decimal point selection box ( | . | , |Auto| ). Anyway, the choice between period and comma was not offered by the original HP-67, as far as I know.

Right. This was not required as the decimal marker occupied a whole display digit, cf. this picture. Since there also was no thousands separator the display was unambiguous in any region of the world. ;-)

So if an emulator precisely emulates a real HP67's display there is no need for switching between comma and period.

Dieter

I might offer the selection Gerson suggested in a future version as part of the extended operation DSP MODE, which currently handles display settings and separator display.

[Sylvain Cote]

(05-04-2016 03:19 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(05-04-2016 01:23 PM)Willy R. Kunz Wrote:  ...The full power of RPN-67 Pro on a pocketable device, even running fine on the iPhone 4s.

Awesome Willy! As an android user, I remain jealous...

As a iOS user, I can attest that it is awesome!
I have all CuVee Software emulators for both iPhone & iPad and they run just fine on my old hardware (iPhone 4S and iPad 2) running the latest iOS (v9.3.1).
Thanks Willy!
Sylvain

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(05-07-2016 01:17 PM)Willy R. Kunz Wrote:  

(05-06-2016 07:37 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  I know the HP-67 had not constant memory and FIX 2 was the initial display mode, but it's annoying to manually changing to FIX 9 (ok, just two keystrokes, DSP 9, but annoying just the same). Would it be possible to save the display mode?

Not sure what you mean here. RPN-67 SD saves the display mode automatically, except in vintage mode, of course. Additionally, in any mode, loading a program from a card sets up the calculator to whatever is appropriate for the program. This includes the display mode, the "trig mode" (deg, rad, grad) and the flags F0..F3. Just like the real HP-67.

Then I was using the Vintage mode only and had not noticed the display behavior in other modes, sorry! The updated version is fine, thanks!

If Vintage mode is meant to be as faithful as possible, perhaps you would like to know that X is not saved in last X for arguments equal to 0 or -1 for SIN⁻¹, COS⁻¹ and TAN⁻¹, according to the manual addendum (I don't have a real HP-67 to check this out). A minor trigonometric bug is also mentioned, but this should should better be ignored for ever.

Gerson.

[rprosperi]

(05-10-2016 07:20 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  If Vintage mode is meant to be as faithful as possible, perhaps you would like to know that X is not saved in last X for arguments equal to 0 or -1 for SIN⁻¹, COS⁻¹ and TAN⁻¹, according to the manual addendum (I don't have a real HP-67 to check this out). A minor trigonometric bug is also mentioned, but this should should better be ignored for ever.

Does not appear to be true on a real 67:

0, [g][4] (=ASIN) => 0.00
[h][0] (=Last-X) => 0.00

-1, [g][4] (=ASIN) => -90.00
[h][0] (=Last-X) => -1.00

-1, [g][5] (=ACOS) => 180.00
[h][0] (=LAST-X) => -1.00

Perhaps the addendum note only applies to some limited range of s/n?

Mine is 1812A01611.

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

(05-11-2016 01:38 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(05-10-2016 07:20 PM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  If Vintage mode is meant to be as faithful as possible, perhaps you would like to know that X is not saved in last X for arguments equal to 0 or -1 for SIN⁻¹, COS⁻¹ and TAN⁻¹, according to the manual addendum (I don't have a real HP-67 to check this out). A minor trigonometric bug is also mentioned, but this should should better be ignored for ever.

Does not appear to be true on a real 67:

0, [g][4] (=ASIN) => 0.00
[h][0] (=Last-X) => 0.00

-1, [g][4] (=ASIN) => -90.00
[h][0] (=Last-X) => -1.00

-1, [g][5] (=ACOS) => 180.00
[h][0] (=LAST-X) => -1.00

Perhaps the addendum note only applies to some limited range of s/n?

Mine is 1812A01611.

Thanks for taking the time to check. The addendum is dated December 1976. Yes, these might already have been fixed in later runs.

[Willy R. Kunz]

(05-11-2016 02:15 AM)Gerson W. Barbosa Wrote:  

(05-11-2016 01:38 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  Does not appear to be true on a real 67:

0, [g][4] (=ASIN) => 0.00
[h][0] (=Last-X) => 0.00

-1, [g][4] (=ASIN) => -90.00
[h][0] (=Last-X) => -1.00

-1, [g][5] (=ACOS) => 180.00
[h][0] (=LAST-X) => -1.00

Perhaps the addendum note only applies to some limited range of s/n?

Mine is 1812A01611.

Thanks for taking the time to check. The addendum is dated December 1976. Yes, these might already have been fixed in later runs.

Well, mine is 1702S02676. It returns +1 in all three cases. Go figure. I won't even try to simulate that... ;-)

[bshoring]

The live Register View is really nice. Just touch the display during a running program and you can watch all the stack & other registers changing as the program progresses. Love it !

[Dieter]

(05-11-2016 01:38 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  Perhaps the addendum note only applies to some limited range of s/n?
Mine is 1812A01611.

This page on hpmuseum.org says that the trig inaccuracies apply to "earlier HP-67 and HP-97s", and also the addendum refers to an early (December 1976) issue of the 67 manual. Your 67 and Willy's are more than a year apart. Since the latter is from January 1977 this matches the date of the manual the addendum is intended for, and indeed the bugs are present.

So it looks like calculators from 1976/77 seem to be affected by this bug while it has been fixed on later 67/97s like yours. Maybe someone has some more detailled information on this.

Dieter

[bshoring]

The recent updates, about 4 June 2016, make it even better. Live stack view option, high contrast display option for outdoor use, and (my favorite) ability to save/load programs with Dropbox. Great updates to this and also the two Spice simulators for iPhone !

[Gerson W. Barbosa]

Any idea where DSP mode is hiding? Thanks!