HP-25 purpose

[Gene]

Hey Matt.

As others have noted, the HP-25 did have looping of the sort where a counter register is decreased once per loop with an X not equal 0? test at the end and a GTO instruction. Cheap looping? yes, but useful.

I for one have not ever thought that subroutines were ** that ** useful on a 49 step machine given the overhead required to call and return from one. I am CERTAIN there are good uses to which they could be put - I have no doubt Valentin :-) - but in general, 49 steps seems small for that. I ** know ** it was pointless on the TI-57, but would have been better on the HP-25 than that for sure.

Remember, the announcement date of the HP-25 was in FEBRUARY of 1975 with the first newspaper ad (that I have found) in late July of 1975.

It would be nearly a year after the introduction date of the HP-25 before Texas Instruments would introduce their first programmable - the SR-52 in early 1976.

I think you may simply have been thrown off by not realizing how very early in the calculator world-time-line the HP-25 came on the scene?

Look over the HP-25 Library of programs from the PPC Journal (50+ of these) and you will likely be amazed at what could be done with it. :-)