Engineering number format inconsistency

[Bernd Grubert]

Hello,
I discovered a inconsistency regarding the implementation of the engineering format between the HP Prime and the older HP-calculators. In the HP Prime, the number of digits for the engineering format refers to number of digits after the decimal point whereas for the old calculators (and for the scientific format) it is the number of significant digits .
Here are some examples with number of digits set to 2:

Code:


 Exact  | HP 50G | HP Prime
--------+--------+----------
 123400 | 123.e3 | 123.40e3
  12340 | 12.3e3 |  12.34e3
   1234 | 1.23e3 |   1.23e3

I find the new behaviour rather inconvenient. In my opinion the engineering format is related to the scientific format and should display number like on the old machines.

Regards
Bernd

[Steve Simpkin]

This subject (or something very similar to it) was discussed in some detail back in January. See:
http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-425-post-2992.html

[Tim Wessman]

Indeed. It was discussed.

[Bernd Grubert]

Hello,
Thanks for the info. I searched for the topic before I started the thread, but I didn't find the old thread. Anyway, is there a chance that this will be corrected in the future?

Regards
Bernd

[Craig Thomas]

The Prime is not intended as an engineering calculator and it's not their target market.
It's intended for high school and college students.

I doubt they have the mandate to add anything to make engineers happy.

[Bernd Grubert]

I don't think that the engineering format is only usefull for engineers. In science prefixes like µ, milli or kilo are common. As I understand one application are scientific experiments with the Stream-Smart. At least for this application a correct working engineering format is useful.

Regards
Bernd

[Thomas Klemm]

At high school my preferred setting for the HP-41 was:

• flag 40 is set for FIX display format
• flag 41 is set for ENG display format
  

Both flags together could only be set using synthetic programming but the result was most useful to me: fixed format for ordinary numbers and engineering format for very big or very small numbers.

Cheers
Thomas

[Bernd Grubert]

With the firmware upade the engineering format is now working as it should.

Thanks to the HP development team!
Regards
Bernd