Programming Handheld Calculators

[Thomas Klemm]

Programming Handheld Calculators
A reminiscence about programming in the era before personal computers
by Paul Lutus

There was an earlier thread: HP 65/25 shout-out in interview with Paul Lutus

I've added the three programs mentioned in the article to the HP Software Libraries:

• (HP-25) Space Flight
• (HP-67) Solar Calculator
• (HP-67/97) Planetary Ephemeris
  

Cheers
Thomas

[rprosperi]

(09-13-2015 11:13 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  Programming Handheld Calculators
A reminiscence about programming in the era before personal computers
by Paul Lutus

There was an earlier thread: HP 65/25 shout-out in interview with Paul Lutus

I've added the three programs mentioned in the article to the HP Software Libraries:

• (HP-25) Space Flight
• (HP-67) Solar Calculator
• (HP-67/97) Planetary Ephemeris
  

Cheers
Thomas

Thanks for sharing these Thomas. The HP-25 article brought back fond memories of my first programmable machine. Though I wrote lots of programs for my 25C, spaceflight was never one of them. I believe that first happened with a PPC article/program for the 41C. I skipped the 67 back then, but have corrected that omission in recent years.

[PANAMATIK]

(09-13-2015 11:13 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  Programming Handheld Calculators
A reminiscence about programming in the era before personal computers
by Paul Lutus

There was an earlier thread: HP 65/25 shout-out in interview with Paul Lutus

I've added the three programs mentioned in the article to the HP Software Libraries:

• (HP-25) Space Flight
• (HP-67) Solar Calculator
• (HP-67/97) Planetary Ephemeris
  

Cheers
Thomas

Very nice programs. Thank you for giving the links.

I tried the Solar calculator on my HP-67. It calculates declination with nice approximation +- 1/2 degree or so. It cannot be used for astronomical navigation, but for knowing when to get up for sunrise.

I compared the results with Mike Stefanski's Nj.exe at

http://www.kowoma.de/gps/astronav/nautjahrbuch.php

This program has an excellent accuracy and when having a look to its mathematics, it never can be entered into a vintage handheld calculator. BTW I ported this old DOS Pascal program to a VS2013 C# application last week

Bernhard

[Eddie W. Shore]

(09-13-2015 11:13 AM)Thomas Klemm Wrote:  Programming Handheld Calculators
A reminiscence about programming in the era before personal computers
by Paul Lutus

There was an earlier thread: HP 65/25 shout-out in interview with Paul Lutus

I've added the three programs mentioned in the article to the HP Software Libraries:

• (HP-25) Space Flight
• (HP-67) Solar Calculator
• (HP-67/97) Planetary Ephemeris
  

Cheers
Thomas

Thanks!

[Steve Simpkin]

Well that brings back fond memories. The program that Paul Lutus submitted to Popular Electronics magazine (Space Flight) really fired my imagination with what could be done with a programmable calculator. I had been saving for almost two years and was already planning to buying my HP-25 in June 1977 on my 16th birthday. This article in Popular Electronics (which came out in May) just added to the fever. After I bought my HP-25 I ended up playing with Paul's program for hours plotting the orbits around various sized planets. Looking back it was a magical time in my life.

[Massimo Gnerucci]

Nice, thank you Thomas.

However a couple images courtesy MoHPC, not Hewlett-Packard... ;)

[Katie Wasserman]

[Split thread, see Fireball XL5, etc.]