Scientific Specific Units

[Dirk.]

A bit off topic, but since Tim gave some insights into priorities in prime development:

I do think the prime is a very good calculator with a very bad reputation and a very low visibility. Look at the reviews in german amazon and you will understand.

About visibility/marketing:
At my university (somewhere in germany, ~30000 Students) they educate future math teachers. These students get a TI nspire CAS. Do they use it? The one I asked (bad statistics, I know) did like it and found it very useful. But he had a second calculator (some CASIO) on the desk to do quick calculations - to get the work done.

Lessons to learn?
1. HP has to target teachers education at universities. (Provide a lot of good materials for teachers, go to the didactics professors at university and show what you have. Teach them: Using HP you students will not learn a calculator, but how to solve mathematical/physics problems.
2. Improve your manual. (With regard to contents AND make it easy to print on normal paper - form follows function!)
3. Always look at the user interface: The quickest way, even for the tiniest calculation, is using a HP.

... hope I did not overstep a border with this comment.


This brings me back to User-Keys/User defined functions and interface.
1) It would be nice to have direct actions happening when starting a user-defined function without the necessity of pressing ENTER later on. It would allow for things like DEG-to-RAD /RAD-to-DEG with a single keypress or convert 0.001 to 1E-3 with a single keypress... "The quickest way is using your HP".
2) Improve RPN and allow programs interacting with the stack. RPN is something only HP provides. (Go to the computer-science didactics professor :-)). This might shut-up all the RPN fans and help to get nice reviews on Amazon. Look at the very nice youtube-videos of rolinychupetin on the 50g. Look how he defines a user key for impedances in parallel. Look how he uses it. Impressing - "The quickest way is using your HP".