HP-12C gets 'Entry-RPN' or Error in the QSG?

[hansklav]

Wow, my post (and especially my remark that the HP-12C Quick Start Guide of 2008 might contain an error) provoked quite some discussion!

My original question was if anyone of you knows of a recent 12C model (the Prestige?) that has the ENTER-behaviour of the 20b/30b?

What I meant was: is there any recent 12C model (after 2008) that has the following behaviour:
2 ENTER 3 ENTER + (Answer: 5; here the second ENTER is optional)
Because that is the behaviour of the 20b and 30b. And of course that is the way all RPL calculators respond, but for a 4-level stack calculator this is quite unusual, because all other classical 4-level stack RPN calculators would give the answer 6 when you key in 2 ENTER 3 ENTER +

The text I quoted from the HP-12C QSG was (now including the preceding sentence): In RPN mode, numbers are entered first, separated by pressing ENTER, followed by an operation key. Pressing ENTER is optional after entering a number, if the next key pressed is an operation. Because this is the same text I read in the 20b and 20b/30b manuals (apart from the fact that there the ENTER-key is renamed 'INPUT') it led me to believe that HP might have changed the firmware of its recent 12C models to have this new and unusual (but for newbies more natural) behaviour. It would mean a revolution for the 12C world, so I did'nt expect it to be true, but I thought: maybe HP just did it, so let's ask the forum.

Now that none of you seem to know such a revolutionary 12C model (at least nobody mentioned any), for the time being I will presume that none exists, so I will not mention the recent 12C models alongside the 20b and 30b as having 'Entry RPN' in my forthcoming RPN Tutorial.

'Entry RPN' is how Richard J. Nelson calls this RPN version (which includes all RPL calculators and the 20b and 30b) in his article 'How RPN Evolves'.

Joe Horn's respons indicated an ambiguity in the above mentioned sentence, and indeed he is right that this sentence can be understood as meaning another use of the ENTER key. Still I am convinced that the use of that sentence (obviously copied from the HP 20b Business Consultant Financial Calculator Manual) in the HP 12c Financial Calculator Quick Start Guide is probably an error, unless there would actually exist a HP-12C with Entry RPN . The main reason for my conviction is that the totally superfluous and puzzling (imho) use of ENTER after an operator (and not a number) and followed by another number is only mentioned in the original HP-35 Operating Manual (in the appendix "An Algorithm") and in the HP-45 Owner's Handbook (in Appendix A. Stack Algorithm and Flow Chart). In all later Manuals that I am aware of it is not mentioned anymore. It would be highly improbable that this, again: optional but totally superfluous, use of ENTER should be mentioned in a Quick Start Guide for the HP-12C.

And thinking about this and reading Richard Nelsons article and the original HP-35 and 45 Manuals it occurred to me that the word ENTER itself as name for the key we are all so fond of is ambiguous too.

But that will be the subject of another post. Stay tuned ;-)

Hans