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Idnarn · 11-13-2024, 04:01 AM

(01-20-2019 03:37 PM)Thomas Klemm Wrote: At 49:30 in this video Ben Eater grabs an HP-16C to translate 42 d to binary 101010 b:

I have a question. I wonder about what use-case a HP 16C would have in today's world. What is a HP 16C good for nowadays other than a novelty?

A typical C programmer who has been programming for a few years can convert hex to binary in their mind trivially. It's a mapping from each hex digit to a nibble (8 + 4 + 2 + 1). As a pattern this is used to store/pass binary flags (as options) in an unsigned int.

Maybe in olden days when programmers were timesharing and had little actual computer-facing time, a 16C would have been more useful when preparing programs on paper. Anyone who is programming today is already using a computer and can evaluate all sorts of operations in a Python shell for example. Perhaps this is why there is no production model of 16C from Moravia.