[34S] Ticks

[jebem]

(05-17-2014 12:18 PM)walter b Wrote:  

(05-17-2014 11:15 AM)jebem Wrote:  (...) Remarks on the Owner's Guide:
(...) Concerning the commands usage section, I see the Owner's Guide as a Reference Guide, more oriented to expert advanced users.
However I see an opportunity here to expose the WP-34S to a more broad population if examples of the commands were included as well, like HP and others are doing. This could be an offer in paper format only, to protect the creator's work.

Thanks for thinking of copyright. One person at least. And yes, the manual assumes you know the traditional functions and also some mathematics (it's even stated therein). We had the Beginner's Guide but that wasn't updated anymore by its author AFAIK.

Hi Walter,
Thanks for your time to reply.

Don't get me wrong, I see the Owner's Guide as a very good work. Surely it took long time to elaborate and validate. Thanks for that.

I spent more than a few hours reading all the contents and checking some of the features in the calculator. By the way, I use HP calculators since they came out, so RPN is not exactly new to me.
So let me be more specific in my remarks:

1) The WP-34S Owner's Guide covers the very basics on RPN and on the WP-34S calculator in great detail (so I do not miss the Beginners guide, really), giving a lot of good examples in the beginning of the book, and covering the basic commands and functions.

2) Then it takes deep explanation on some math features implementation, before going to the reference guide (Index of Operations), where we can also find a couple of good examples.
However the majority of the functions just have the general syntax and arguments, and referring to the HP-15C or to the HP-42S documentation for more details.

3) Then it goes into great detail on memory and registers architecture.
And then the Appendixes covers pretty much all the ins and outs on how to take a HP-20/30B to create and maintain a WP-34S.
I enjoy this section as I work with computers with electronics engineering and digital systems as my background.

4) As I see it - what am I missing in this book?
There are some fundamental math features that do not have concrete examples (like the ones in the beginning of the book) to get the users started on this calculator environment. So there is space for improvement here.

For instance, it was nice to have explicit simple examples explaining how to:
4.1) Create a matrix;
4.2) Take a couple of matrices and use them to solve simultaneous equations;
I know how to do it on a HP-42S, quite easy in fact, but I didn't find the time to decrypt the information supplied in this guide and develop/test how to do it in the WP-34S;
4.3) Use Complex numbers, if possible with matrices;
4.4) Use Differentiation;
4.5) Use Integration;
4.6) Use Derivatives;
4.7) Use the Solver (SLV);

Again, I'm not complaining, just pointing out what I see is missing in the book.
After all this is a free open project that was created by a small group of dedicated people to whom we should be grateful!

And from my part, I say again:
Thank You for the opportunity You are giving to other people to enjoy this great project for free!