HP 28 misc...

[Thomas Okken]

(06-21-2018 01:43 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  There are two kinds of humans: Those who love RPL (the "programming language" used in these calculators) and those who detest it. There is nothing in between...

Sure there is. I, for one, generally prefer RPN over RPL, but some algorithms are just a lot easier to implement in RPL, thanks to its local variables, support for recursion, and such.

(06-21-2018 01:51 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Though lack of I/O (well, I anyhow, I guess IR printing must qualify as O) is a big limitation, I think the larger reason these machines are not too popular and relatively cheap, is the terrible battery door/door frame design.

Right, the battery door, I forgot about that. I didn't own my 28S long enough for it to break, but I remember that changing the batteries in that machine was a real struggle, so bad it made me wonder what idiot came up with that design (though I think it might actually have been OK if only the spring wasn't so terribly stiff).

Another issue was the hinge, wasn't it? I've heard that the flex cable, that runs through that hinge to connect the left keyboard to the main board, sometimes fails... and even if it doesn't, the hinged design makes the machine borderline unusable hand-held.

I guess those factors do matter more than the lack of external storage, particularly given how popular the 42S is, which has no external storage either.