HP50G Menus

[Marco Polo]

Having some free time i started digging in the HP50g menu system.
I realized that some menus are (more or less) duplicated without any apparent reason, at least at my eyes.
For example, we have the CMPLX menu (invoked by OrangeShift+1) and MTH-->CPLX (MTH invoked by WhiteShift+SYMB).
There are similar examples spread all over the calculator, not counting the MAIN and SYMB menus and the "obscure" MENU 93 containing only some math commands.
This is quite confusing to me and even disturbing having a very light OCD :-)

Such organization comes from original 49g and was left intact in the evolution to 49g+/48gII/50g.

Anybody can explain what is the rational, if any, behind these choices?

[franz.b]

also in my opinion there are hardly acceptable choices in the construction of the menus, I came from a simple and functional 48S that I consider almost perfect. There hasn't been an evolution, it seems to me more a transition to the mixer.. B)

anyway it had already been talked about here, even with you
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-74...l#pid66585

[Joe Horn]

(05-25-2022 03:59 PM)Marco Polo Wrote:  I realized that some menus are (more or less) duplicated without any apparent reason, at least at my eyes. ... and the "obscure" MENU 93 containing only some math commands.
This is quite confusing to me and even disturbing having a very light OCD :-)

Such organization comes from original 49g and was left intact in the evolution to 49g+/48gII/50g.

Anybody can explain what is the rational, if any, behind these choices?

You answered your own question. Menu 93 on the 50g is the same as the left-shift 9 menu on the HP 48. Since RPL programs can contain the command 93 MENU (or 93 TMENU), that menu was included in the 50g for software compatibility. It is not included in any keyboard menu because the 50g has more functions than the HP 48, so the 50g has many "new, improved" menus. So the old "obsolete" menus are there so that the user instructions in old RPL programs will still work, and the new menus are there because they are more complete.

That being said, I personally found the whole thing just as confusing at first as you did, and that's why I wrote Appendix H for the HP 50g Advanced Users Reference Manual, which lists all the 50g menus, identifying which ones are "legacy" (AKA "abandoned") menus from the HP 48.

[Marco Polo]

(05-25-2022 11:23 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(05-25-2022 03:59 PM)Marco Polo Wrote:  I realized that some menus are (more or less) duplicated without any apparent reason, at least at my eyes. ... and the "obscure" MENU 93 containing only some math commands.
This is quite confusing to me and even disturbing having a very light OCD :-)

Such organization comes from original 49g and was left intact in the evolution to 49g+/48gII/50g.

Anybody can explain what is the rational, if any, behind these choices?

You answered your own question. Menu 93 on the 50g is the same as the left-shift 9 menu on the HP 48. Since RPL programs can contain the command 93 MENU (or 93 TMENU), that menu was included in the 50g for software compatibility. It is not included in any keyboard menu because the 50g has more functions than the HP 48, so the 50g has many "new, improved" menus. So the old "obsolete" menus are there so that the user instructions in old RPL programs will still work, and the new menus are there because they are more complete.

That being said, I personally found the whole thing just as confusing at first as you did, and that's why I wrote Appendix H for the HP 50g Advanced Users Reference Manual, which lists all the 50g menus, identifying which ones are "legacy" (AKA "abandoned") menus from the HP 48.

I understand the needs of backward compatibility.
What i don't understand is the presence of very similar menus, being one a subset or a superset of the other, or bringing completely different functions for the same matter.
For example menu 130 (OrangeShft+1) is a subset of menu 20 (MTH--->CMPLX) plus the "i".
Furthermore, there is MAIN-->MATHS-->CMPLX

There are many other examples:
MTH-->MATR (Menu 5)
MATRICES (Whiteshtf+5) (menu 129)
MAIN-->MATHS-->MATR

And much more

In this way if you need a specific function you may have to look into several menus, often buried under other menus

Imho a more rational way would have been to expand the MTH (Whiteshft+SYMB) menu and submenus and map it to the shortcuts on keys 1 to 9: no additional menus, backward compatibility ensured being the 48g menus a subset of 49g.
Eventually separating CAS only functions, to be put into SYMB menu

[Marco Polo]

(05-25-2022 07:13 PM)franz.b Wrote:  anyway it had already been talked about here, even with you
https://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-74...l#pid66585

Argh.....it appears that my (only) neuron needs some lifting :-D

The passing years do not help to keep memory alive....

[jonmoore]

It's not just about backwards compatibility to 48 generation programs. A large part of the reason that some prefer the 48GX over the 50g is that the MTH collection of soft menus is the default menu setup (this defaults to the Tool set of soft menus on the 50g).

The general UX on the 48 series of calculators is far more direct than the 50g. Its downside is that the soft menu labels can be cryptic at times, which can cause difficulties with new users.

Personally, I like both for different reasons. I tend to use the 48 more as a numerical calculator. Even with Meta Kernal (or SpeedUI), Erable and ALG48, the 50g offers a far more streamlined RPN CAS experience. But for typical engineering style calculations, the 48GX can be the faster environment from a pure UX/interaction design perspective. Plus, these days I find the Prime the best CAS solution (but only in algebraic mode). I use the 50g more than the Prime as I prefer accessing certain CAS functionality via an RPL user interaction modality for lots of my most common workflows, but the Prime CAS offers better options overall.

Going back to the 50g MTH set of soft menus, there are times when I use those as my main UX entry point, as they work particularly well when Flag 117 is checked (which makes the 50g default to 48 style soft menus). The main benefit here is that you cut out a lot of shift key acrobatics. But you have to know the menu structure and its occasional cryptic labelling to benefit. That's why it's primarily of benefit to those that spent many years with the 48 family of calculators.

[ttw]

I have been using a somewhat roundabout method of fixing up menus. I just have a program in each directory called "Here" that has the local menu for that directory (besides the standard CST, I have a CST0, CST1, etc. if needed; there are programs Here1 and Here2, etc. that activate them.) I also have a file dDict that contains the name and description of all local variables and programs. For the present, I have a bunch of programs at the root that do things like generating a sequence of numbers, evaluating continued fractions, determining if one number is a primitive root or quadratic residue of another, changing surds to their continued fraction; changes continued fraction partial quotients to surds, etc. A bunch of utility stuff like FXND, AXL, and IQUOT, are also there. It goes by the name NTh but anything would do.

I suppose I will learn to fix up custom menus sometime but this is easy and the "Here" files are easy to edit. I could take a rarely used button and attach a menu to it.