WP 34S Solver

[AnalogJoe]

Hi, I just bought a WP 34S calculator, I really like it however the learning curve is quite steep with this one. I've been a long time HP user, however most of my experience comes from using the "bigger" HP calculators such as the 48GX and 50G series.

I've been trying to understand the Solve function, to be honest the documentation on the WP 34S is really poor, so I've been reading the Hp 15c manual which apparently is quite similar to the way things are done in the WP 34S.

Im trying to find the roots of polynomials, the WP 34S has a dedicated quadratic solver, but I want to know how to find the roots of higher order polynomials such as 3rd order, etc..

Im doing the following test program, my goal here is to find the roots of the following simple quadratic equation: x^2 + 5x + 1=0

Following the 15c examples in the manual I hit 'h' then P/R

and type:

LBL 00
2
y^x
x<>y
5
x
1
+
RTN


I enter 2 initial guesses which are 1 and 2 in the X and Y registers, then I hit SLV 00

The calculator works a little while and displays: -0.2

The correct roots are -0.208712152 and -4.791287847

So the solution is considerably off the correct result. Also no matter what initial values I enter, I cant get the calculator to display something near -4.79 which is the second root.

My hope is that once I figure out how to solve quadratic equations solving cubics will be easy.

Any idea what am I doing wrong? also, does the calculator support complex roots using the the SLV function?