Sharp PC-E500S or Sharp PC-G850VS?

[jonmoore]

(06-18-2022 02:47 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  According to the Sharp engineers that made them, the PC-E500/E500S would have the best math capabilities for engineering use, some functions were removed (or deemed less necessary) for the G850V, which was targeted at educational markets. By the time the G850V was introduced (~93), PCs were becoming mainstream and widely replacing pocket computers for technical use.

That said, the manuals for both are available (various links here) and can be readily compared to assess which functions they provide; I believe you'll find the BASIC language itself is quite similar, but not exactly the same.

The E500/E500S uses the ESR-L ("Electronic Slide Rule, version L) CPU, an 8-bit CMOS custom Sharp processor (same as used in the Wizard/IQ organizer models), while the G850V uses a Z80 clone.

Thanks Bob.

As I mentioned in my first post, I've already devoured all of the E500/E500S/G850V/S threads of the last 5(ish) years here on the forum. And read all available English PDF docs (both original and v3 of the G850V community translation), and finally Marcus Von Cubes excellent spreadsheet that digs into a lot of the comparative detail of various manufacturers' efforts over the years).

I was aware that you worked for Sharp in a previous life so I'm glad to get your perspective on things. And the lengthy G850V/S forum thread from 2017ish showed that a reasonable number of forum regulars had purchased G850V/S's from Japan given the high-quality translation docs that were being developed at the time (I forget the chap's name that was mainly responsible for the effort).

But even with all that meat to chew on, nothing beats a POV or two from folk that own both models, especially if it's framed by the specifics of what I was asking ref the Basic and Math implementations.

Funnily enough, one of the things that's come out in the wash ref the later education market Casio models is that they include the C Math Library (something that's missing on the G850V/S). And given that the C implementation is interpreted (no need to compile) I maybe wouldn't need to be so nervous ref critically ballsing things up with bad memory pointers and suchlike. I'm definitely going to be spending as much time as possible with the Casio Z-1GR emulation in PockEmul before finalising on a Sharp PC-E500S purchase (it's fair to say that this is my prime candidate right now).

Thanks for filling in some of the blanks.