HP Prime - worthy successor to HP-71B ?

[Steve Simpkin]

(02-05-2024 03:44 PM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  ...
Impressive documentation.
From a very quick look at it, I'm puzzled by several references to mainframe - which would normally have referred to large computers, whereas the HP-71 is a calculator.
Does mainframe have a special meaning in the context of the HP-71?

(02-05-2024 04:20 PM)KeithB Wrote:  HP-71 mainframe:
The calculator without considering any plug-in modules or accessories.
It is so expandable, you need to make this distinction.

The same "mainframe" term is also used to describe the HP-41C itself.
For reference, the hardware and software design of the HP-41C can be found in the Mar 1980 issue of Hewlett packard Journal magazine.
https://www.hpl.hp.com/hpjournal/pdfs/Is...980-03.pdf

   

[Garth Wilson]

I should add that I did an awful lot of typing on my 71.  I decided I better slow down when the 71 was discontinued, because I figured I'd be out of luck if the keyboard ever wore out and needed repair or replacement.  I could type about 30wpm on the 71's 60%-size keyboard, coincidentally about 60% of the speed I typed on a full-size keyboard.  I used a rather full-featured text editor I wrote that took advantage of the LEX files from the Paris users' group which were published in the CHHU Chronicle.  One might think that the 22-character, one-line display would be too limiting, like trying to see your work as if through an old-fashioned keyhole; but I made the editor specifically to be able to operate portably, without hauling the monitor around, by making it so this "keyhole" could be moved nimbly around my work.  The Prime would not be suitable for such typing.