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carey · 11-09-2022, 07:28 PM

Hi everyone,

I'm interested in RPL as a general desktop scientific programming language, as independent as possible of specific calculator constraints (e.g., particular keyboards or displays).

Desktop RPL calculator emulators work well, but are tied to particular calculators. A desktop build of NewRPL is available, but appears (to me) to be targeted to calculators rather than as a general purpose language, e.g., the desktop UI seems to require selecting either a Prime or 50g keyboard & display to interact with.

Is there a way to use desktop NewRPL in something like a console mode where it reads an RPL script and outputs numerical or symbolic results without displaying a virtual calculator keyboard and window (I'm not looking for plots or graphical output)? Or perhaps I'm thinking of the question wrong and might achieve some general RPL programming goals by viewing desktop RPL as an IDE with an embedded programming language.

The other desktop RPL options I'm aware of are: RPL/2 (I'm looking for something simpler to install and use on Windows), rplsh (last version is from 2009), and the Emacs Calculator (haven't tried yet).

Thank you!

Sukiari · 11-09-2022, 07:42 PM

The emacs calculator is excellent.

gwh · 11-10-2022, 09:49 AM

There's also https://github.com/louisrubet/rpn (easier to compile than rpl/2)

And my own https://github.com/gwenhael-le-moine/rpl.rb (my "toy" implementation in Ruby)

carey · (This post was last modified: 11-11-2022 07:28 PM by carey.)

Thank you Sukiari, I'll give Emacs Calc a try!

Thank you gwh for the Louis Rubet rpn link! It looks nice but may not fit the bill for me since it's targeted for linux and appears to lack array support. Your work on rpl in Ruby looks promising. Best wishes on its continued development!

John Keith · 11-12-2022, 01:10 AM

The Emacs calculator is RPN but it is not RPL. Emacs Calc can be programmed in LISP, but programming an RPN calculator in LISP (which is "straight" Polish notation) would make my head explode.

IMHO, NewRPL is the best RPL alternative in active development. It is not 100% compatible but it is close. It is also very fast, with up to 2000 digit precision. I do not know if Claudio has any interest in a general purpose (non-calculator interface) version but I would also be very interested if such a thing was created.

Claudio L. · 11-12-2022, 08:57 PM

(11-12-2022 01:10 AM)John Keith Wrote: The Emacs calculator is RPN but it is not RPL. Emacs Calc can be programmed in LISP, but programming an RPN calculator in LISP (which is "straight" Polish notation) would make my head explode.

IMHO, NewRPL is the best RPL alternative in active development. It is not 100% compatible but it is close. It is also very fast, with up to 2000 digit precision. I do not know if Claudio has any interest in a general purpose (non-calculator interface) version but I would also be very interested if such a thing was created.

I think that adding another target would dilute even more the limited efforts to keep this project alive. But, if you can code even a little, the size of the screen in pixels can be changed to a larger value in one line of code (more resolution, good for PC use) and simply remove the keyboard image, or hide it making it go outside of the containing window. The keyboard image is of course needed for targets that have touchscreen only like Android so it won't ever be officially removed. Those changes alone would make it work li!e a desktop applicatio. Copy/Paste from the clipboard is already a working feature.

Claudio L. · 11-12-2022, 09:02 PM

(11-09-2022 07:28 PM)carey Wrote: Is there a way to use desktop NewRPL in something like a console mode where it reads an RPL script and outputs numerical or symbolic results without displaying a virtual calculator keyboard and window (I'm not looking for plots or graphical output)?

The answer is yes. You need to build it yourself as it isn't included as a common target but in the source code there's a newrpl-base project that's just a console, but it is an interactive one. It uses standard I/O so a simple pipe could send the input and capture the output.

carey · (This post was last modified: 11-13-2022 08:28 PM by carey.)

(11-12-2022 09:02 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:
(11-09-2022 07:28 PM)carey Wrote: Is there a way to use desktop NewRPL in something like a console mode where it reads an RPL script and outputs numerical or symbolic results without displaying a virtual calculator keyboard and window (I'm not looking for plots or graphical output)?

The answer is yes. You need to build it yourself as it isn't included as a common target but in the source code there's a newrpl-base project that's just a console, but it is an interactive one. It uses standard I/O so a simple pipe could send the input and capture the output.

Thank you Claudio for your helpful reply!

carey · 11-13-2022, 08:29 PM

(11-12-2022 01:10 AM)John Keith Wrote: The Emacs calculator is RPN but it is not RPL. Emacs Calc can be programmed in LISP, but programming an RPN calculator in LISP (which is "straight" Polish notation) would make my head explode.

IMHO, NewRPL is the best RPL alternative in active development. It is not 100% compatible but it is close. It is also very fast, with up to 2000 digit precision. I do not know if Claudio has any interest in a general purpose (non-calculator interface) version but I would also be very interested if such a thing was created.

Thank you John for your helpful comments about the Emacs calculator and NewRPL!