math in today's comics

[rprosperi]

(04-30-2017 04:58 PM)Don Shepherd Wrote:  

(04-30-2017 03:46 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  RPN program on my 71B

Don't you mean BASIC?

No, there's a "BIN" (for binary, written in assembler) RPN Calculator program created back in the day by Chris Capaner, that provides a full-featured 4-level RPN for the 71B. It did not include and programming, but otherwise implemented most of the 71B built-in "math functions" which includes stuff like factorial, trig, R<>P, HR<>HMS, with full 71B precision, etc. but does not support Matrices or some of the other more advanced 71B stuff (e.g. NAN and IEEE stuff). It came with an overlay with about 40 function/key assignments, and it retained the full stack (plus LAST and STO/RCL) between sessions, and also provided keywords to let a BASIC program retrieve the X, Y, Z, and T values.

It was intended to provide a way (and successfully accomplished) for RPN-trained users to 'just do interactive calculations' on the 71B. The cute built-in CALC mode was an attempt at that, and while it did have advantages over normal AOS, it couldn't compare with RPN. It's because of this program that I was able to wean off the 41C and onto the 71B as my primary machine.