HP Prime

[gbh]

I do a long calculation in RPN mode.

Then I need to save the result to one of the 26 Home variables, A--Z.
How?

The only way I have been able to save an answer from HP Prime RPN is by writing it down!

Thanks for any help you can give.

[Joe Horn]

(08-30-2014 02:44 AM)gbh Wrote:  I do a long calculation in RPN mode.

Then I need to save the result to one of the 26 Home variables, A--Z.
How?

The only way I have been able to save an answer from HP Prime RPN is by writing it down!

Thanks for any help you can give.

Just put the variable name in single quote marks (shift parentheses), Enter, then press Sto►(shift EEX).

In general, whenever you want to put a variable on the stack unevaluated (like here), just put it in single quotes. Omit the quote marks to evaluate the variable.

[gbh]

Yes, this works.

Could I have figured this out from the (wholly inadequate) manual? I doubt it. I can find no mention of enclosing variables in single quotes, in the chapter (22) on Variables, or elsewhere. Just to be sure I searched the entire manual PDF in Acrobat.

Just to be definite, the manual is a joke. Many important topics are not covered or even mentioned, and many of those that are covered are not in the skimpy index.

Thanks for your help.

[sol740]

That's one of the reasons I sold my HP 50G a few years ago. Awful manual.

I'll probably get flamed off the site for this but the best manuals have always come with Casio calculators IMHO. Example from my daily driver (Casio FX-991 ES PLUS): http://support.casio.com/storage/en/manu...S_C_EN.pdf

Concise, accurate and useful.

[eried]

(08-30-2014 08:32 PM)sol740 Wrote:  That's one of the reasons I sold my HP 50G a few years ago. Awful manual.

I'll probably get flamed off the site for this but the best manuals have always come with Casio calculators IMHO. Example from my daily driver (Casio FX-991 ES PLUS): http://support.casio.com/storage/en/manu...S_C_EN.pdf

Concise, accurate and useful.

Casio does not have anything else to write anyway. If HP removes all the functions the manual could be that concise and accurate.

I struggled long time with the Algebra FX2.0 (top notch of these era in the Casio line-up), extremely easy to use, no manual required, but anything advanced was just not possible, not even string handling, heavy routines (to numerically solve some stuff... my memory is weak so in some physics or calculus tests I always tried to get solutions via bruteforce, not with stuff from course), very limited matrix limits, save spaces, memory, etc... the possibilities I acquired after that with my 49g+ were endless, anything you dreamed was doable: that can't have any concise manual.

[Joe Horn]

(08-30-2014 08:32 PM)sol740 Wrote:  That's one of the reasons I sold my HP 50G a few years ago. Awful manual.

I hope you're not referring to the HP 50g Advanced User's Reference Manual, which was in large part a labor of love (and a good example of attention to detail) by the following folks whose names might sound familiar:

Jordi Hidalgo
Joe Horn
Tony Hutchins
Ted Kerber
Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz
Richard Nelson
Eric Rechlin
Jake Schwartz
Gene Wright
... and other enthusiasts whose names escape me now.

Words cannot convey how your profuse expression of gratitude moves me. I will never again be able to refer to it as having been a thankless task. All I can say is, you're welcome.

[walter b]

(08-30-2014 10:04 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(08-30-2014 08:32 PM)sol740 Wrote:  That's one of the reasons I sold my HP 50G a few years ago. Awful manual.

...
Words cannot convey how your profuse expression of gratitude moves me. I will never again be able to refer to it as having been a thankless task. All I can say is, you're welcome.

Did I miss anything or is that the kind of sarcasm preferred here, following the prevailing opinion?

d:-?

[Joe Horn]

(08-30-2014 10:12 PM)walter b Wrote:  

(08-30-2014 10:04 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  ...
Words cannot convey how your profuse expression of gratitude moves me. I will never again be able to refer to it as having been a thankless task. All I can say is, you're welcome.

Did I miss anything or is that the kind of sarcasm preferred here, following the prevailing opinion?

d:-?

You have taught me well, Walter.

[Michael de Estrada]

Joe,

I didn't know you were involved in the HP 50g AUR Manual, and can tell you that it's the only reason I've been able to harness most of its capabilities.

For my part, I thank you very very much.

Now, if only the Prime could have something similar, it might actually become useful.

Michael

[gbh]

I have no desire to get in the middle of an argument about the HP50 manual, which I've never seen.

Despite the frustrations of the HP Prime, I'll stay with HP because of RPN.

But, I simply don't understand why HP doesn't provide a comprehensive manual for the Prime. A simple PDF available on-line would be adequate.

Having had the Prime for a couple of weeks now, my major frustrations are the lack of integration between Home (with RPN) and CAS, and the inadequate manual. I also find a lot of lesser problems that I assume will be fixed eventually. A minor annoyance is the hard-to-see pale orange color use for the alpha key labels (unfortunately this won't be fixed by a firmware update).

One problem is just weird: how can a maker of scientific calculators put out something that expresses 0.1234 as .1234, omitting the universally used initial zero?!

To be fair, good to excellent features of the Prime include the PPL, the CAS system (for symbolic math), great display and touchscreen, impressive set of apps, fine keyboard, and rechargeable battery (a biggie to me).

[Michael de Estrada]

(08-31-2014 12:02 AM)gbh Wrote:  But, I simply don't understand why HP doesn't provide a comprehensive manual for the Prime. A simple PDF available on-line would be adequate.

There is a detailed User Guide pdf file, that can be accessed by installing the Prime Emulator on your computer (assuming you have a pc) and selecting the User Guide from the Help menu in the Emulator. It contains a great deal more information than the printed Quick Start Guide.

Also, the Prime works exactly the same way in RPN mode as the HP 48, 49 and 50g when it comes to such issues such as storing data in named variables etc. So, if you are familiar with any of those previous HP calculator models, you should be able to figure out how to use RPN in the Prime Home screen.

[Mark Hardman]

(08-31-2014 12:02 AM)gbh Wrote:  One problem is just weird: how can a maker of scientific calculators put out something that expresses 0.1234 as .1234, omitting the universally used initial zero?!

What version of firmware are you running? This was fixed in the latest version: 2014 3 31 (6031).

[Mark Hardman]

(08-30-2014 11:26 PM)Michael de Estrada Wrote:  Joe,

I didn't know you were involved in the HP 50g AUR Manual, and can tell you that it's the only reason I've been able to harness most of its capabilities.

For my part, I thank you very very much.

Now, if only the Prime could have something similar, it might actually become useful.

Michael

Could I hijack the thread for this single post? I'd like to remind people that we still need about ten more commitments for another run of the printed, spiral bound copy of the HP50g AUR.

See: Advanced User's Reference - printed version

[sol740]

(08-30-2014 10:04 PM)Joe Horn Wrote:  

(08-30-2014 08:32 PM)sol740 Wrote:  That's one of the reasons I sold my HP 50G a few years ago. Awful manual.

I hope you're not referring to the HP 50g Advanced User's Reference Manual, which was in large part a labor of love (and a good example of attention to detail) by the following folks whose names might sound familiar:

Jordi Hidalgo
Joe Horn
Tony Hutchins
Ted Kerber
Wlodek Mier-Jedrzejowicz
Richard Nelson
Eric Rechlin
Jake Schwartz
Gene Wright
... and other enthusiasts whose names escape me now.

Words cannot convey how your profuse expression of gratitude moves me. I will never again be able to refer to it as having been a thankless task. All I can say is, you're welcome.

I'm going to reply with some rationality rather than HP love.

Like most things these days from HP it suffers from one massive problem:

It's just available as a PDF, it's huge and it's uneconomical to print the entire thing and HP won't ship manuals any more and the abridged users manual isn't even slightly useful.

I know you can get 3rd party printed ones as mentioned in the post above but the commitment and likelyhood of a fast turnaround suits only the enthusiast, not the professional user.

ENTIRE Casio manuals for some of their higher end devices such as the 5800P whilst not having symbolic support, are smaller than the getting started guide in paper area. There is also a quick reference in the hard shell that ships with it. That's done RIGHT.

On the basis of HP's manual policy, I have to read it on a PC and lug that around anyway (which is a large ThinkPad W540 at the moment). So I might as well use the far superior programming capabilities, performance and usability of SciPy, SymPy, Python and IPython (and now GAIC/Xcas) on a nice 1920x1080 colour screen...

The verbosity, format and availability of the HP 50G manuals pretty much hangs the device regardless of the technical achievement.

I'm aware of the third party online help stuff from hpcalc.org BTW. That was the only reason I kept using it for as long as I did. Nice job for whoever wrote all that!

[Tim Wessman]

(08-30-2014 04:51 PM)gbh Wrote:  Just to be definite, the manual is a joke. Many important topics are not covered or even mentioned, and many of those that are covered are not in the skimpy index.

The issue always boils down to "important according to whom". One person's important maybe only be important for .00001% of the customer base.

Now I agree that the RPN information is totally inadequate, and the implementation needs more work as well (blame me for that since I made it). The manually basically assumes right now that a) you are a student, and b) you are running things in default settings. The assumption was made that if you were running set to RPN mode, you were most likely a 49/50 user and things like using a 'quote' around a variable would be second nature.

The plan was, and never has been, to leave RPN so poorly explained indefinitely, but priorities besides "it should be done because it needs to be done" will always take a back seat in a large company that is driven by weighing costs and resources against potential increase in sales.

[gbh]

Okay, I get the picture. The HP Prime User Guide is the best we're going to get. Those who need more help should refer to the HP 48/50 Advance User's Reference Manual, but that volume is unavailable. (Major Major would love it.) I give up. (I can do so because my programming needs are modest, involving things I can eventually figure out for myself by experimentation.)

So, I'll try another approach. Which standard language is most like PPL? I'll get a book on that language and try to apply it to the HP Prime.

Frustrating though this situation is, I think I slightly overstated the deficiencies of the HP Prime User Guide in my initial post. I've since tried reading the manual as a separate activity, instead of just looking things up in it while trying to figure out how to use the Prime. While the User Guide still leaves much to be desired (especially examples), I would now raise its rating from 2 stars to 3 stars.

Thanks.

[oldhpfan]

(09-01-2014 02:28 AM)gbh Wrote:  So, I'll try another approach. Which standard language is most like PPL? I'll get a book on that language and try to apply it to the HP Prime.


Thanks.

I'd suggest looking up some Pascal references on the internet (there are many), or check out the freepascal.org website and look over some of the documentation/tutorials. Admittedly I just downloaded the emulator today but my first glance tells me this is closer to Pascal than BASIC or other languages (and I've been through a lot of them).

[Tim Wessman]

(09-01-2014 02:28 AM)gbh Wrote:  Okay, I get the picture. The HP Prime User Guide is the best we're going to get.

I didn't say that. The manual is part of the product and will be changed/refined/extended as part of any work. The challenge is always keeping them in sync, and also making sure you don't drag the other langauges way behind.

Quote:So, I'll try another approach. Which standard language is most like PPL? I'll get a book on that language and try to apply it to the HP Prime.

Pascal most likely as pointed out. Really, we tried to make it so it would feel pretty universal and if you'd used any programming lanugage it will make sense just looking at it.

The thing that seems to trip most people up is, as you've discovered, the CAS/Home schizophrenia and when people are trying to mix things in ways that really aren't supported well at the moment. The other major stumbling block is the "try to use it/program it just like a 28/48 series machine".

Quote:While the User Guide still leaves much to be desired (especially examples), I would now raise its rating from 2 stars to 3 stars.

Glad to see it went up at least a little. I agree on the example part. Part of the problems with doing detailed examples is that any *tiny* little change can render those totally invalid depending on how it is written. Trying to minimize sweeping required changes allows us more freedom to fix/resolve/enhance without breaking all the documentation. If a change requires updating 1 section of the manual instead of 40, that can weigh heavily as to whether the fix/change happens now, or has to be batched with more extensive revisions or changes later.

[gbh]

Okay; we're making progress. I appreciate all the help. I'll look into Pascal.

Another question that either isn't in the manual or I can't find:
How do I enter or invoke a physical constant (e.g. Avogradro's number or Planck constant) in a program? My guess is that this is in the manual but I can't find it.

Also, a minor suggestion for some future revision: make available mass of electron, proton, . . . in MeV as well as kg; and h and hbar in eV s as well as J s; and k in eV/K as well as J/K.

[walter b]

(09-01-2014 05:50 PM)gbh Wrote:  Also, a minor suggestion for some future revision: make available mass of electron, proton, . . . in MeV as well as kg; and h and hbar in eV s as well as J s; and k in eV/K as well as J/K.

Please allow me quoting from the WP 34S Owner's Manual, p. 227:

Quote:1 J = 1 A s V = 1 eV/e ≈ 6.24x10^18 eV

d:-)