WP43 News

This area is for discussion about these families of custom high-end Scientific Calculator applications for SwissMicros devices.
H2X
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Re: 43S News

Post by H2X »

rprosperi wrote:
Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:09 pm
Walter wrote:
Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:02 pm
How does a distance become smaller by folding? :?
Read Dune. It's fairly well explained...
Or check out Kip Thorne. The diameter and circumference of a circle is not always related as one might think. Similar concept...

https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue ... orne/index
What is the metric tensor in imperial units?
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

H2X wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:06 am
rprosperi wrote:
Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:09 pm
Walter wrote:
Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:02 pm
How does a distance become smaller by folding? :?
Read Dune. It's fairly well explained...
Or check out Kip Thorne. The diameter and circumference of a circle is not always related as one might think. Similar concept...

https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue ... orne/index
OK, you'll know something strange is in space when circumference is less (or greater) than 2 pi times the radius. Circumference may shrink or radius grow or whatever. But a measured length of 1 pc (measured by us in our universe) is a measured length of 1 pc is a measured length of 1 pc per definition, even if you put your yardstick through a wormhole. Thus, 1 pc/yr stays 1 pc/yr staying greater than 1 lightyear / yr, always. YMMV but your distance must not. ;)
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
H2X
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Re: 43S News

Post by H2X »

Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:53 am
H2X wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:06 am
rprosperi wrote:
Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:09 pm


Read Dune. It's fairly well explained...
Or check out Kip Thorne. The diameter and circumference of a circle is not always related as one might think. Similar concept...

https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue ... orne/index
OK, you'll know something strange is in space when circumference is less (or greater) than 2 pi times the radius. Circumference may shrink or radius grow or whatever. But a measured length of 1 pc (measured by us in our universe) is a measured length of 1 pc is a measured length of 1 pc per definition, even if you put your yardstick through a wormhole. Thus, 1 pc/yr stays 1 pc/yr staying greater than 1 lightyear / yr, always. YMMV but your distance must not. ;)
Actually, your yardstick may vary. As may your worldline. It is really relative.
What is the metric tensor in imperial units?
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

H2X wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:00 am
Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:53 am
OK, you'll know something strange is in space when circumference is less (or greater) than 2 pi times the radius. Circumference may shrink or radius grow or whatever. But a measured length of 1 pc (measured by us in our universe) is a measured length of 1 pc is a measured length of 1 pc per definition, even if you put your yardstick through a wormhole. Thus, 1 pc/yr stays 1 pc/yr staying greater than 1 lightyear / yr, always. YMMV but your distance must not. ;)
Actually, your yardstick may vary. As may your worldline. It is really relative.
So how shall you be entitled to claim something shrinks or grows?

And I will keep claiming 1 pc/yr > 1 ly/yr in whatever environment.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
H2X
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Re: 43S News

Post by H2X »

Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:22 am
H2X wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 9:00 am
Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 7:53 am
OK, you'll know something strange is in space when circumference is less (or greater) than 2 pi times the radius. Circumference may shrink or radius grow or whatever. But a measured length of 1 pc (measured by us in our universe) is a measured length of 1 pc is a measured length of 1 pc per definition, even if you put your yardstick through a wormhole. Thus, 1 pc/yr stays 1 pc/yr staying greater than 1 lightyear / yr, always. YMMV but your distance must not. ;)
Actually, your yardstick may vary. As may your worldline. It is really relative.
So how shall you be entitled to claim something shrinks or grows?

And I will keep claiming 1 pc/yr > 1 ly/yr in whatever environment.
Whatever is true in my frame of reference, I'll claim. As should you. If that equates to "whatever environment", I am not sure...
What is the metric tensor in imperial units?
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Since I've read some complaints about the location and order of arithmetic operators (also elsewhere ;) ), please allow me to summarize the background considerations:
  • HP's pocket calcs from the HP-35 until the HP-41CX had the operators [÷], [×], [+], [‒] (bottom up) located on the left directly below [ENTER].
  • HP's pocket calcs from the HP-11C on had [+], [‒], [×], [÷] on the right - [ENTER], however, staid left.
  • The poll returned -- among other results -- that [ENTER] shall be positioned on top of the four arithmetic operators for ergonomic reasons.
  • It returned as well that the operators shall be located on the left (though this majority was a bit less IIRC).
  • Nobody found any reason so far why HP chose the sequence [÷], [×], [+], [‒] for their early pocket calculators.
    OTOH, the sequence [+], [‒], [×], [÷] carries far more "inherent logic".
Thus, the operators [+], [‒], [×], [/] went below [ENTER] to the left. The division symbol [/] is employed since it's understood by people who learned [÷] or [:] at school -- and it's visually easily discriminable from the other arithmetic symbols employed on this calculator (unlike [÷]). The multiplication symbol [×] is employed since using the alternative [·] would cause abundant complaints by those who use a [.] instead of a [,] as radix mark -- they are quite intolerant in this matter although points may be overlooked easier than commas and using [×] leads to some counterintuitive use in vector algebra. Just FYI.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
Thomas Okken
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Re: 43S News

Post by Thomas Okken »

Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:59 pm
  • Nobody found any reason so far why HP chose the sequence [÷], [×], [+], [‒] for their early pocket calculators.
    OTOH, the sequence [+], [‒], [×], [÷] carries far more "inherent logic".
Also, the sequence [+], [‒], [×], [÷] (bottom to top) appears to be by far the most common on calculators in general, or at least on those where the arithmetic keys are in a vertical arrangement. (Most current Casios and Sharps have them in a 2x2 block instead, judging from what google image search is showing me.)

N.B. The same argument -- it being the de facto standard -- could be made for putting the arithmetic keys to the right of the number keys. I'm guessing that's why HP adopted that arrangement as well.
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Re: 43S News

Post by rprosperi »

Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:59 pm
[*]Nobody found any reason so far why HP chose the sequence [÷], [×], [+], [‒] for their early pocket calculators.
OTOH, the sequence [+], [‒], [×], [÷] carries far more "inherent logic".[/list]
While I agree the operator sequence as stated has more inherent logic when speaking about them, I think the precedent set by, and experience we all have from using, the 35/45/55/65/67/21/25/29/31/32/34/41... well you get my point, seems like a better precedent for a machine specifically intended to capture and extend the spirit of those machines.

As stated in a few other places, there are 2 well-defined standards; I think it makes sense to retain them and use them as-is (depending on which style is appropriate) and not invent another standard.

I would have commented far sooner about this (years ago in fact) had I even noticed the operator sequence had changed. Upon seeing operators on the left, I simply presumed they were in the traditional sequence, as it never would occur to me the sequence may have changed.

Just my 2 cents....
--bob p

DM42: β00071 & 00282, DM41X: β00071 & 00656, DM10L: 071/100
burkhard
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Re: 43S News

Post by burkhard »

I saw this thread a week or so ago, but my board registration approval took a while for some reason, so I couldn't post my thoughts until now.

I confess I am rather enamored with the fine work Walter, Pauli, Marcus, et al did on the WP34s. That user-community project stretched the bounds of what anyone might have thought either technically or practically possible. The industrial design of the keyboard layout was frankly excellent. Anyone who was adept at using an HP calculator, especially one since the mid-late 1980s, was right at home, despite all the functionality packed in. It's frankly leagues (sorry for non SI units here) beyond its contemporary, the HP-35s (not bad in its own right, I'll grant),

The WP34s project well-understood the market for the device. From the success, I think a very strong case should be made to follow one of the two existing HP standards for the layout out on the critical lower area of the 43s keyboard:

1. Either put the math operators on the LEFT side, with "classic" key order from top to bottom: (- , + , * , / ). This matches HP-41C and earlier calculators.

OR

2. Put the math operators on the RIGHT side, with "modern" key order from top to bottom: (/ , * , - , +). This matches the HP-28C and newer calculators (including the WP-34s)—every new model introduced in the last 37 years.

To me, as a business decision, the choice for #2 is straightforward, although I have some personal sympathy for #1 myself. But, anyone who has spent any time on an HP calculator introduced after the 41 has used this "#2" system. HP migrated to it with the Voyagers and HP-28c and never looked back (except the detail of that stupid ENTER key size/placement on the 49/50).
As a bonus, #2 puts the math operators in the platonically ideal order Walter likes!!! :-)

Doing it the #1 way would be OK by me as well, as I currently mostly use an HP-41CX now. It's still not as "natural" as the HP-15C I used all through engineering school and for decades thereafter, but I like it as well and I'm slowly getting more facile with it. And I've got a few of the older LED machines also. That is not the operator order Walter really wants, though, and it is a revert to the distant past, rather than an evolution of some very nice more recent machines.

Which brings me to what we see proposed at the start of this thread. This "Layout #3" (just my name I'll employ here for convenience...) is an odd hybrid. It's the newer top-to-bottom order (which Walter likes), but on the old side of the calculator. This makes it significantly different from what everybody is used to! It's a layout nobody will be comfortable with.

I know in a past poll "on another forum" users indicated a preference for a left side layout and Walter has been running with that direction since. Examining the poll though, I'm pretty sure it was flawed. I submit that most of the "left side favoring" respondents missed the critical subtlety that they were NOT voting for the HP-41 (and earlier) layout they thought. I don't think most realized they were choosing a curious mix of old leftward keys but with the new operator order. That's not a trivial detail.

Obviously, the operator key layout is somewhat arbitrary, but 2 prior standards exist and calculator-usage facility (speed) is aided by not fighting muscle memory each of us has had "flashed in" over decades. There is a reason that QWERTY/QWERTZ/AZERTY typing layouts are ubiquitous despite not being either the order we learned letters or fundamentally the optimum positions based on letter frequency. Yet, it would be a recipe for failure for an electronic gadget to be released that expected its users to switch to Dvorak.

The 43s is an "HP RPN homage" product aimed at a narrow slice of society (there will likely be NO new users off the street... everybody will come from owning 1 or "a lot more" HP RPN calculators). As such it really should stick with one of the two standards HP has given us and we've all used for decades. Introducing a new layout for the very most commonly used part of the calculator will be a major turnoff for many potential customers.

burkhard
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Thomas Okken wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 2:57 pm
Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 20, 2018 1:59 pm
  • Nobody found any reason so far why HP chose the sequence [÷], [×], [+], [‒] for their early pocket calculators.
    OTOH, the sequence [+], [‒], [×], [÷] carries far more "inherent logic".
Also, the sequence [+], [‒], [×], [÷] (bottom to top) appears to be by far the most common on calculators in general, ...

N.B. The same argument -- it being the de facto standard -- could be made for putting the arithmetic keys to the right of the number keys. I'm guessing that's why HP adopted that arrangement as well.
I concur with statement 1.

About putting the arithmetic keys right or left, however, there was agreement to put them below [ENTER] -- please see also HP's Prime. Alas, we have contradicting traditions here:
  • Each and every HP RPN pocket calculator so far features [ENTER] left. So this is constant, for whatever reason.
  • The arithmetic operators moved from left to right with the launch of the Voyagers. No idea why they didn't move back with the Pioneers -- may well have been a tribute to the overwhelming arithmetic majority.
Reasons for keeping the arithmetic operators directly below [ENTER] were ergonomic (for right-handed people).
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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