HP Prime or HP 50g

[JSBach]

I also know some 70's and 80's manuals:
HP-35, HP-67, HP-41CV, HP-42S, HP-18C, HP28S

They were fantastic - the contents and the "hardware".


Besides the fact that the Prime manuals are in PDF format, they are WAY better than the manual of the Casio fx-991. But they also need to because of the complexity of the Prime.


JSBach

[Neve]

(07-12-2018 01:07 PM)JSBach Wrote:  I also know some 70's and 80's manuals:
HP-35, HP-67, HP-41CV, HP-42S, HP-18C, HP28S

They were fantastic - the contents and the "hardware".


Besides the fact that the Prime manuals are in PDF format, they are WAY better than the manual of the Casio fx-991. But they also need to because of the complexity of the Prime.


JSBach

My point exactly.
The issue is not whether the Prime hardware is good; it is. Even though it lacks MAJOR I/O, the raw hardware and power are awesome. However, the OS is light years away from what is expected from HP. But then again it’s not meant for the pros.
I know I keep saying that, but the 41 line is THE reference against which all others are compared. Or the 42s for it’s power. Both the OS and hardware were amazing. Even 30 years after it’s been discontinued, the 41’s are used and well cared for. So will the 50g probably.
When and if HP is capable of doing that again on a more modern and powerful hardware, they would have achieved something awesome and worth spending time with for decades to come.
But I guess they’re not...

[JDW]

(07-12-2018 01:52 PM)Neve Wrote:  The issue is not whether the Prime hardware is good; it is...

Says the gentleman who a few short posts ago labeled the Prime "pure crap." Sorry, but there is too much HP-bashing and contradictory statements being made for me to give credence to what is being said.

-----------

I am curious about one thing, and perhaps Cyrille or Tim would be kind enough to reply to this. HP obviously expects people to buy the Prime, not just use the computer simulated version for free. Am I right? :-) And to be sure, I would want a device I could hold in my hand over an on-screen simulated calculator any day. But my question is this? Why is the documentation any different?

I don't share Neve's negativity toward HP at all, but I do agree that PRINTED documentation is as much of value over a PDF as a real Prime is over the simulated version. To say a PDF is sufficient for documentation is akin to saying the simulated Prime is sufficient as a calculator. To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense.

If I really don't care about a book, I'll get a digital version of it. But if I care about a book, expecting to read portions more than once, and seeking to put it on my bookshelf as a reference manual, I will seek out a printed version. And while I could just print out the entire HP Prime documentation on my laser printer, that really isn't the same as having a well bound book, like HP documentation of old.

I don't mean to bash anyone at HP by saying this, and I for one do NOT think the Prime is "feces" as some here repeatedly contend. But I do feel strongly about the need for printed documentation. Yes, I know its 2018 and its been a trend to do away with paper and save all those trees. But again, what if there was a trend to do away with the physical Prime so as to use the free simulated version? Perhaps can see my point. Some of us would actually pay a little to get a good printed set of manuals akin to what we got with HP calculators in the past. Could we hear HP's reasoning on this?

Thank you.

[grsbanks]

(07-12-2018 02:34 PM)JDW Wrote:  […] I do feel strongly about the need for printed documentation. […]

I'm with you on that. That's why I paid to have a copy of the 50g's Advanced User Reference printed.

Perhaps the guy who has already orchestrated, I think, three rounds of print jobs of the 50g's manuals could be persuaded to do likewise for the Prime?

http://www.hpmuseum.org/forum/thread-7430.html

[Tim Wessman]

(07-12-2018 02:34 PM)JDW Wrote:  "Some of us"

I think that answers your own question. Unfortunately there are NOT enough people who want that to justify the cost in paying to print, stock and sell such a small volume item. That is just the harsh reality of modern business. :/

[Neve]

(07-12-2018 02:34 PM)JDW Wrote:  

(07-12-2018 01:52 PM)Neve Wrote:  The issue is not whether the Prime hardware is good; it is...

Says the gentleman who a few short posts ago labeled the Prime "pure crap." Sorry, but there is too much HP-bashing and contradictory statements being made for me to give credence to what is being said.

If you don’t see the difference between the hardware and the OS, There’s not much anyone can do.

[Claudio L.]

(07-12-2018 02:34 PM)JDW Wrote:  To say a PDF is sufficient for documentation is akin to saying the simulated Prime is sufficient as a calculator.
...
Some of us would actually pay a little to get a good printed set of manuals akin to what we got with HP calculators in the past.

If you don't mind the higher cost... have you considered something like a Kindle (not the low-end ones, but the better ones, with fast CPU, tons of storage space, etc)? You could have all your manuals, in a paper-like interface (probably easier to search than paper, thinking of an AUR for example), paper-like look (similar to your laser printer), but still PDF in the end.
I don't have an e-reader, I only used one several years ago and it felt slow (that should've changed, it's 2018!), but I always wondered if that would satisfy all the old timers here that want printed manuals. I personally keep the PDF with the 50g AUR open in the computer while coding, and searching for a command is way faster than flipping through 800+ pages. If I could have it on the desk on an e-reader would be even better, but I wouldn't give up that search capability to have a printed copy.

[Neve]

(07-12-2018 04:19 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(07-12-2018 02:34 PM)JDW Wrote:  To say a PDF is sufficient for documentation is akin to saying the simulated Prime is sufficient as a calculator.
...
Some of us would actually pay a little to get a good printed set of manuals akin to what we got with HP calculators in the past.

If you don't mind the higher cost... have you considered something like a Kindle (not the low-end ones, but the better ones, with fast CPU, tons of storage space, etc)? You could have all your manuals, in a paper-like interface (probably easier to search than paper, thinking of an AUR for example), paper-like look (similar to your laser printer), but still PDF in the end.
I don't have an e-reader, I only used one several years ago and it felt slow (that should've changed, it's 2018!), but I always wondered if that would satisfy all the old timers here that want printed manuals. I personally keep the PDF with the 50g AUR open in the computer while coding, and searching for a command is way faster than flipping through 800+ pages. If I could have it on the desk on an e-reader would be even better, but I wouldn't give up that search capability to have a printed copy.

The search capabilities are indeed a great feature. Not denying that at all. But a nice book has its own charm. I personally don’t want to always be in front of a computer or tablet while reading. I guess having the choice, even for an understandable extra cost would be nice.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

(07-11-2018 05:09 AM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  And as an interesting side note... people have compiled and are running numworks on the Prime hardware by replacing the ROM. That is the first time a "competitor" has been capable of running the firmware from the other company. If that doesn't say something about the relative capabilities I'm not sure what else would.

Please do not taunt me into porting the HP Prime's firmware onto a NumWorks. My free time is strained enough as it is.

(Yes, the NumWorks calculator with a couple of hardware mods could theoretically have the guts required to emulate an HP Prime calculator and "run" an early HP Prime firmware like how this this guy "ran" Linux on a 8 bit micro, but the end result would beg me to end its suffering.)

[JDW]

(07-12-2018 02:46 PM)Tim Wessman Wrote:  

(07-12-2018 02:34 PM)JDW Wrote:  "Some of us"

I think that answers your own question. Unfortunately there are NOT enough people who want that to justify the cost in paying to print, stock and sell such a small volume item. That is just the harsh reality of modern business. :/

Why not innovate and create a tie-up with an on-demand printing service so your HP calculator users need only order a manual (for a fee, naturally) and have that order fulfilled by the outsourced printing service? It's 2018. Surely something like that must exist, even if its outside the USA.

With that said, human beings are quite predictable. We love "retro." If we didn't, the NES Classic and similar would have proved to be market failures. Surprisingly, they weren't. As such, I think HP might surprise its own marketing department by surprising HP calculator fans by offering "the HP manuals of old" once again, even if they are outsourced. Please don't treat this suggestion flippantly. If you've not tried it, you cannot say it would fail. There's a reason we've not yet replaced every single paper textbook in schools for digital screens (and probably never will). Paper is here to stay. It's just a matter of will (your will over your marketing department) to use paper or not. (And yes, trees are indeed a renewable resource.)

While on the topic of marketing departments, is there a logical reason why HP limits sales of its Prime outside the USA? When I visit the HP Japan website (Japanese language site), the Prime is no where to be found among other HP calculators, but the Prime does appear when I manually search for it. However, on the HP Japan web store, the Prime is no where to be found. I find that quite curious, especially since HP took the time and expense to make the Prime UI switchable to Japanese.

(07-12-2018 04:35 PM)Jean-Baptiste Boric Wrote:  ...the NumWorks calculator with a couple of hardware mods could theoretically have the guts required to emulate an HP Prime calculator and "run" an early HP Prime firmware ...

So what prevents one from emulating the 50g on a Prime?

My thinking is, even if you could emulate a 50g or Numworks on a Prime, the KEYS of those respective calculators are so different that you are not giving the user the REAL DEAL experience with your emulation. The same holds true if you were to emulate a Prime or 50g on a NUMWORKS. If the physical keys are radically different, I myself cannot see any meaning to the emulation. Emulating an old OS on a new computer is one thing, but emulating one calculator on another where the keys are different is yet another. I don't see the benefits.

[Thomas Radtke]

(07-12-2018 04:19 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  If you don't mind the higher cost... have you considered something like a Kindle (not the low-end ones, but the better ones, with fast CPU, tons of storage space, etc)? You could have all your manuals, in a paper-like interface (probably easier to search than paper, thinking of an AUR for example), paper-like look (similar to your laser printer), but still PDF in the end.

Yes, and PDF files don't render well on ebook-readers. A PDF layout cannot be responsive.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

(07-13-2018 12:39 AM)JDW Wrote:  

(07-12-2018 04:35 PM)Jean-Baptiste Boric Wrote:  ...the NumWorks calculator with a couple of hardware mods could theoretically have the guts required to emulate an HP Prime calculator and "run" an early HP Prime firmware ...

So what prevents one from emulating the 50g on a Prime?

1. One would most likely want a port of newRPL for the Prime rather than an emulator of the original 50g firmware on the Prime.
2. There are only a handful of people doing bare-metal development on the HP Prime out there, including myself, and most of us aren't even from of the HP community. Port requests and complains about said ports not happening or just outright contempt about our work won't make those come out any faster. Actually helping us or doing these yourself would.
   

(07-13-2018 12:39 AM)JDW Wrote:  My thinking is, even if you could emulate a 50g or Numworks on a Prime, the KEYS of those respective calculators are so different that you are not giving the user the REAL DEAL experience with your emulation. The same holds true if you were to emulate a Prime or 50g on a NUMWORKS. If the physical keys are radically different, I myself cannot see any meaning to the emulation. Emulating an old OS on a new computer is one thing, but emulating one calculator on another where the keys are different is yet another. I don't see the benefits.

My initial comment about emulating the HP Prime on a modified NumWorks was clearly tongue-in-cheek. Nevertheless, the HP Prime has a keyboard that actually maps fairly well to a NumWorks port. It's not perfect, but with a couple of bugfixes/additional device drivers/modifications to my port the HP Prime would be a better NumWorks calculator than the original NumWorks calculator.

[Neve]

(07-13-2018 11:57 AM)Jean-Baptiste Boric Wrote:  [list=1]
[*]One would most likely want a port of newRPL for the Prime rather than an emulator of the original 50g firmware on the Prime.

BTW, how’s the current state of development of that awesome newRPL for the 50g? Do you know?
Last time I checked it out was over a year ago. I myself couldn’t get along with it because of the remapping of the keys. I’m so used to the current keys and menus.
I wished I could get over it cause it’s truly awesome and lightning fast too!!!

[Claudio L.]

(07-13-2018 12:36 PM)Neve Wrote:  BTW, how’s the current state of development of that awesome newRPL for the 50g? Do you know?
Last time I checked it out was over a year ago. I myself couldn’t get along with it because of the remapping of the keys. I’m so used to the current keys and menus.
I wished I could get over it cause it’s truly awesome and lightning fast too!!!

I guess that's a question for me, it really belongs in another thread but... I'm taking a vacation on newRPL for a few months while I work on the Prime, in preparation for a future port of newRPL (there's a lot of work to be done before I can run newRPL ALONGSIDE the current firmware). The concept is that neither the Numworks port nor newRPL could replace the power of the full CAS in the Prime, so replacing it permanently doesn't make much sense to any user. My vision is not to replace the Prime firmware, but to allow multiple firmwares to run and be "switched" at will.
Now if you could switch between them simply by turning the calc off and back on, I see most users would have no reason to not have all 3 firmwares installed, which will benefit everybody.

[JDW]

(07-13-2018 11:57 AM)Jean-Baptiste Boric Wrote:  Port requests and complains about said ports not happening or just outright contempt about our work won't make those come out any faster. Actually helping us or doing these yourself would.

I don't understand your comment seeing that I was NOT making a "port request" nor was I complaining about ports. I merely said that I (one man among billions on this earth) do not see the point of a port in cases where the keys are dramatically different such that the original experience cannot be perfectly replicated. That isn't a complaint. It is merely a factual observation on my part.

I still want to know why HP hides the Prime in the HP Japan store. That isn't a complain either. It is mere curiosity.

[Neve]

(07-13-2018 01:16 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(07-13-2018 12:36 PM)Neve Wrote:  BTW, how’s the current state of development of that awesome newRPL for the 50g? Do you know?
Last time I checked it out was over a year ago. I myself couldn’t get along with it because of the remapping of the keys. I’m so used to the current keys and menus.
I wished I could get over it cause it’s truly awesome and lightning fast too!!!

I guess that's a question for me, it really belongs in another thread but... I'm taking a vacation on newRPL for a few months while I work on the Prime, in preparation for a future port of newRPL (there's a lot of work to be done before I can run newRPL ALONGSIDE the current firmware). The concept is that neither the Numworks port nor newRPL could replace the power of the full CAS in the Prime, so replacing it permanently doesn't make much sense to any user. My vision is not to replace the Prime firmware, but to allow multiple firmwares to run and be "switched" at will.
Now if you could switch between them simply by turning the calc off and back on, I see most users would have no reason to not have all 3 firmwares installed, which will benefit everybody.

I’m sorry my question wasn’t more specific. I was referring to the current status of development of the newRPL for the 50g. I don’t have a Prime.

But you’re work is fantastic.

[Jean-Baptiste Boric]

(07-13-2018 01:33 PM)JDW Wrote:  

(07-13-2018 11:57 AM)Jean-Baptiste Boric Wrote:  Port requests and complains about said ports not happening or just outright contempt about our work won't make those come out any faster. Actually helping us or doing these yourself would.

I don't understand your comment seeing that I was NOT making a "port request" nor was I complaining about ports. I merely said that I (one man among billions on this earth) do not see the point of a port in cases where the keys are dramatically different such that the original experience cannot be perfectly replicated. That isn't a complaint. It is merely a factual observation on my part.

This was not a comment targeted specifically at you, merely a general statement. There were some less than stellar exchanges in this forum on that subject some time ago.

[Claudio L.]

(07-13-2018 02:02 PM)Neve Wrote:  I’m sorry my question wasn’t more specific. I was referring to the current status of development of the newRPL for the 50g. I don’t have a Prime.

But you’re work is fantastic.

Your question was clear, my answer was just as clear: I'm on vacation from newRPL for the time being.
The rest of the post was because I felt the Prime community might be more interested in what's keeping me from working on newRPL, much more relevant in this subforum.

[Neve]

(07-13-2018 02:20 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(07-13-2018 02:02 PM)Neve Wrote:  I’m sorry my question wasn’t more specific. I was referring to the current status of development of the newRPL for the 50g. I don’t have a Prime.

But you’re work is fantastic.

Your question was clear, my answer was just as clear: I'm on vacation from newRPL for the time being.
The rest of the post was because I felt the Prime community might be more interested in what's keeping me from working on newRPL, much more relevant in this subforum.

Fair enough

[BERNARD MICHAUD]

I am the author of ElectLibrary 1.0 posted on the hpMuseum site here. The program was also transferred to hpcalc.org and is presently suspended for now.
The reason being that after doing some of the work requiring only Real Numbers by way of the Solver App. (which is very convenient in solving for any of the variables in the equation), I realized that the Solver App could not be used to solve equations incorporating Complex Numbers. For example: Using any Global variables dedicated to Complex Numbers such as Z1 to Z0, ...entering the equation Z3=Z1*Z2 was accepted by the Solver App.
However entering (2+3*i) for Z1, generated an error of "invalid input". I never intended to say that the hp Prime could not support Complex Numbers. I made a program in the Library called "Linear Equations" which mimics the "Linear Solver App". It accepts both Real and Complex Numbers as inputs and gives the result in both Real or Complex Numbers, ..also the result in Rectangular and Polar form for (2x2) and (3x3) equations. ACBasicE also in the Library uses Complex Numbers to solve AC Circuits. All I meant to say is that Complex Numbers such as (2+3*i) are not usable in the SOLVER APP although they can be used in User programs or on the Command line etc.. I should also say that I have never used the command cSolve and whether it can be used within the Solver App.

BM