WP 34S and 31S bugs and fixes

[Bit]

(12-07-2014 08:54 PM)Nigel (UK) Wrote:  Here are some thoughts from a user:

As a general principle, I'd like things to stay consistent with the manual unless the change fixes a bug. Any significant changes that find their way into the default build need to be clearly documented.

In the default build, 0.00123e-383 (for example), when entered, displays as 1.23e-386. Checking for numbers being too small or large once the command line has been processed might be easier than trying to prevent their entry, and would allow a consistent approach. Speaking for myself, not being permitted to enter 1.23e-386 directly has never been a source of frustration. In fact I rather enjoyed finding a way around the input restriction, but I accept that consistency is to be desired.

Nigel, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Regarding what's easy to check: A full-fledged mechanism that always knows the maximum exponent that can be entered without producing an infinity or losing any entered digits in denormalized numbers, costs about 10 extra lines of code, 40 bytes in the firmware and no measurable decrease in performance. It's very cheap, so in my opinion the decision should be based on what's the best user experience.

If I understood Walter correctly, in his opinion the current intended behavior of only permitting exponents between 384 and -383 is optimal. However, the actual behavior is that it's possible to enter 1e-384 directly.