on the RPN mentioning sharp pc-1211, v.albillo, el-506w and recurring topics

[pier4r]

(12-04-2017 04:32 PM)Trond Wrote:  Well......notice how many personal opinions and points of view you give here (e.g. you find this or that confusing). We all have a tendency to think that our own opinion reflects some sort of general truth. We're not discussing some physical constant here. It is all personal opinion.

I agree. We mostly write personal opinions.

Nonetheless, I am pretty sure the world runs way more algebraic calculators than RPN and I wanted to understad why, aside from the personal ego stroke: "ha! Their brain is poor!".

Now it is likely that many people see only algebraic systems, so they take it for granted. As people used to RPN stick with it.
What would happen if one is exposed, before being biased, to both worlds?

I suppose that if one can see the entire formula one is entering, plus the ability to quickly fix it, the RPN choice would be put aside.
If the formula cannot be seen, the the risk of having to retype the formula even just to be sure that the result is the same, because one may have doubts about possible typos, may swing the choice to RPN.
Although the point about "we compute in a very similar way to RPN" is also valid.

I see it as a composition of various factors.

RPN:
- likely easier: to develop parsers for the calculator because the human does most of the work.
- possibly easier: to control if the typing went awry and one has to redo the computations done until then. (here a sort of history of what one typed won't be bad. Aside from the short one present on the 50g)
- likely easier: to match the RPN procedure with how we would proceed to compute a formula in our brain.
- likely: it forces you to think about the formula and elaborate it, instead of brainlessly type in the calc. (this may be a unwanted overhead sometimes)
- possible advantage (weak?): saves some keystrokes most of the time.

algebraic:
- likely harder: if one cannot see the formula typed up to that point, it can be very frustrating if one makes a typo or has a doubt about a typo. Type everything again, no chances to inspect the formula mid course.
- likely easier: if one can see the formula that is typing. Since we are used to the algebraic notation.
- likely easier: to fix a formula if one can edit the formula that is typing.
- likely easier: if one can recall previous computations in form of algebraic entries.

At the end it seems a problem to avoid frustration rather than something else.

I would say that the power of "ability to quickly edit a formula" that, for example, the el 506w has, is quite the big deal. Together with the ability to recall (and edit) a previous algebraic entry. Frustration minimized most of the time.

To achieve a similar solution in RPN, for the little that I know, one should proceed to write a little program/keystroke sequence and then edit it if needed.