What makes "FOCAL" FOCAL?

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(04-11-2020 01:37 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  As for the HP-71B, also my favorite of all HP machines, it is undoubtedly better in every way except size, ...

To further continue this thread drift: As much as I like the HP-71B myself, there is one very important aspect in which it is vastly inferior to almost every other calculator, unfortunately: Its very limited usablity as a simple calculating tool. 95% of what I - and I guess almost anyone - use a calcultaor for is performing simple calculations on the fly. No elabaorate programming tricks, no laboratory equipment controlled by a pocketable device (never had any use for that anyway), no printing or mass storage. Just like the question I was asked lately: How much does an aeroplane contribute to the total water contents of the atmosphere during every hour of flight? And what must be the conditions so that a contrail will either dissolve quickly or become the cause of a cloud overcast. I guess the 71B would be one of the last calculators to use for that kind of task...

And to the original thread: In my opinion the HP-41C did not add sufficient new features to previous RPN keystroke programming implementations to qualify for it's own programming language. FOCAL or what else one may call it.

Regards
Max