Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

General discussion about calculators, SwissMicros or otherwise
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Linus_Sch
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Linus_Sch »

Quoting what came up in a different thread:
dlachieze wrote:
Thu Sep 29, 2022 12:14 am
Walter wrote:
Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:50 pm
At the time the HP-41C, -32S, and -42S were launched, they were addressing different groups of users with clearly different demands.
And different budget ! When I purchased my 32S in 1989 I considered the 42S but at that time couldn’t justify spending for it.
Walter wrote:
Wed Sep 28, 2022 10:50 pm
Now, OTOH, the people discussing the DM41X, DM32, and DM42 and their features here are all the same. What SwissMicros didn't succeed so far (observing this forum) is directing their three DM models to separate target groups: DM42 for power users, DM41X for nostalgic, and DM32 for menu haters, for instance.
The Pioneer family was segmented following the traditionally good / better / best approach.
  • People on a budget would pick a good calculator (10b for finance, 20s or 21s for science/statistics).
  • People wanting a better one (either because they need it or to show they can afford it) would choose a mid range one (14b for finance or 22s for science on the algebraic side - 32s/32sii for the already declining RPN side).
  • People wanting the best pocket calculator and/or show they deserve one would pick the 17b/17bii for finance, 42s for science and RPN or the 27s if they are or want to be technical managers.
This was working with the calculator market at that time. Nowadays the RPN calculator market is a very small niche. And as you noticed such segmentation does not exist anymore, we are all RPN nostalgic, and can afford a pretty high priced RPN toy (serious people do serious calculations on computers). Furthermore there is no economy of scale possible that could lead to a low priced RPN scientific calculator (the latest one was the 35s introduced 15 years ago) to target new users and divert them from TI/Casio.
It is not easy, perhaps not feasible, for SwissMicros to produce cheaper calculators. What they can do is produce calculators on the same premium platform with a different set of functions. Following such reason and the above analysis of the Pioneer line, it would make a lot of sense for SwissMicros to produce a 17b-alike and a 27s-alike. Given that the 17bii+ is still sort-of-available and that the do-everything models have come up in the discussion a few times before, I lean heavily towards the latter.

But the 27s is not RPN, and that was the end of the discussion. But I strongly believe that not all SwissMicros calculators should be clones, and an RPN calculator with a similar - not necessarily the exact same - set of features and the same target customer (the technical manager) is a very logical place to start creating fully new calculators.
Heinrich.a
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Heinrich.a »

Linus_Sch wrote:
Wed Sep 28, 2022 11:48 pm
I started writing this in response to the following post in the thread about DM32 extensions of the 32sii, but it ends up more appropriate in this thread.
Boub65 wrote:
Wed Sep 28, 2022 6:55 pm
Now about the DM32 targeting a "new" population of users not already aficionados of HP RPN calculators...
I think it is very difficult, and I will explain my position..

DM41X price is 229 CHF
DM42 price is 199 CHF
DM41L price is 129 CHF

Based on the fact that DM32 will have a keyboard complexity similar to DM41X (two colors shift + alpha) I think that the price sould be similar to DM41X and will not be lower than DM42... so let suppose that the price is around 199 CHF...

Do you really think that a "non HP RPN aficionado, born after 1980" (up to 40 years old), will buy a calculator that has such a "gross" display (look at the WP43S display just to compare), with no way to display messages other than using an "equation" and a flag (weird isn't it ?), using .0-.9 for 10-19, reading A.01 and A,01 istead of A101 and A201, with limited complex, no matrix, etc.. etc... and for 199 CHF ? I really don't think so...

So, the price should be looooooower than 199CHF (at the level of DM41L or 149CHF maximum) or the "non HP RPN aficionados born after 1980" will just buy the extraordinary WP43S for just a bit more (249 CHF?).

May I remind you that the competition on this market segment is Casio at 50$ or Ti at 100$ with all the "power" features that seam not "simple" enought for DM32!

I don't speak about us (HP RPN aficionados) of course, that will buy any thing that SM throws at us... :D :D :D

Just my 0.02c about adressing a new market segment.
To a limited extent, the users of the DM32 might be a bit younger and/or a bit less hardcore enthusiasts. The 32sii had more such users than the 42s originally. And I think that those who got started on an RPL calculator, never had 4 level RPN, but are curious about the old way and/or wants something pocketable might be very interested. Not too sure how many those people are but it's at least me.

My story:
I was born in 1990, so I might be the youngest person active on these forums. :lol: In 2006, when I started the part of education where we needed a graphing calculator, the school I went to tried to get away from TI and ended up with some absolutely awful Sharp ones. I nicknamed mine "Puckot", which translates to "the idiot". It eventually stopped working altogether. So I went on the internet and searched for the best calculator ever made. I may be a bit of a nerd about any tools and any technology, and I may have had no idea what I was getting myself into. :D I found out about HP calculators and RPN, as one does when searching for that, and I was intrigued. A friend of my dad had what I believe was a 42s, possibly a 28s, and I was allowed to borrow it for one weekend including the manual - "absolutely needs to be back Monday morning, I can't do my job without it!" - and I was convinced. So I ordered my first HP, a 50g, probably in the spring of 2007.
I agree with you about pretty much everything, altough i would focus much more on a basic scientific calculator and then a userRPL based calculator , but thats maybe becuase im 10 years younger than you are.. Or its maybe becuase i am that rookie your talking about, "getting interested in calculators" :lol: About four weeks ago i had to buy an calculator for my physics course and my next 5 years of engineering studies. So i did abit of research about what calculator to get. And guess what, i didnt buy a Swissmicros calculator and thats for two reasons, the main one being i needed something that would be allowed at the exams and also that i would not need use half of my brain learning how to use it, its allready enough work to understand my proffesors.. But at the same time i got curious about RPN etc, but after looking at the prices and compared those to basic scientific calculators i couldnt let my self splurge (for a poor student) on something like a DM42 becuase it might be something that becomes more cumbersome than useful. But after getting my basic calculator my inner nerd wasnt satisfied, and i tried multiple simulators etc but not having a physicalkeyboard made it really annoying trying to understand rpn/rpl. So went on to the auctionsites and found a 48sx for around 40usd, it was still abit to much to just throw away and after a quick google session i understood that its slow.. and its really slow according to some. But after it still being out for sale a week later i bought and said well now i wont be googling about calculators now i will be satisifed, well that was a lie. Now i also own a 12c and have 4 emulators on my phone and computer.. And im back here looking for a swissmicro calculator to maybe splurge on next year.. So what actually got me hooked on RPN was that i could get a 40 dollar device, which allowed me to test RPN for real(compared to emulators) and i dont think im alone about that. But also, now when i have tried both rpn and rpl, i would really say that rpl is more intutive for the younger aduience(guessing based on my own experience) and also showing the full stack is important. Having a commandline as an extra x register is really convient when learning instead of pushing up the stack after doing an operation and typing in new inputs also how it handles objects and texts its really easy to get into. Its actually crazy for me to realize how consistent the UI is, most new rushed tech has waaay to much inconsistent behaviour in the UI compared to what HP did with their calculators.
Linus_Sch
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Linus_Sch »

So I'm not the youngest enthusiast around anymore! :D

Don't worry about the 48sx being slow. A fast calculator would not have saved me more than a minute or two on any exam I've ever seen. Some graphing operations can be slow, but I did way more graphing on the calculator before university than in university. I did a few times calculate some integral that took tens of seconds, but I don't think I ever actually needed to, I mostly used that to double-check my pen on paper calculations.

The way that RPL works with units, that was key to saving time and brainpower for me, and it still is! Custom menus with the right units and physical constants for the task can be a very big help. I think it was something like half an hour on a 5 hour exam for me, quite often. Less looking up numbers in books. Any number you need more than once you save, put CRDIR on a key to stay organized while keeping it quick.

Our rules always allowed the 50g (except when no calculator at all was allowed), but asked for memory to be cleared when starting. When following the rules I would start my exam by first noting on paper memorized formulas (rehearsed one last time just before entering), then putting together a custom menu of units and constants. I don't think I ever cleared out the in-built equation library and periodic table, nor my flags or my key assignments. "Just" variables. The periodic table has saved me a bit of time, fetching molecular weights and densities and such, but these rarely caused too much jumping around in the books and therefore the benefit was small to non-existent. To the equation library I have probably lost more time than it has saved me! For one or two hard-to-crack exams, after failing twice or more, I may have found use for the fact that the relative obscurity of a non-TI calculator can result in key people not being able to figure out neither what you have stored in the calculator nor how to clear it. That may have saved me an entire hour on a 5-hour exam.

Hm, I got slightly side-tracked there. Was there any wish for a new SwissMicros product in there? Yes, RPL somehow, yes that's old news...

I'm very curious about one thing: what does the DM42, the DM41x, the DM32 and the 43s project look like to you - who way more recently than myself discovered it all? How do they compare, which one gives you more of an urge to splurge on it? What features not found on any of these would give an even stronger urge to part with the kind of money that they do cost?
gopper
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by gopper »

Linus_Sch wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:53 pm
The way that RPL works with units, that was key to saving time and brainpower for me
That, the way you can use the calculator functions with the shift keys, and RPL, are the reasons why I miss my HP48gx the most.
Heinrich.a
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Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2022 4:32 pm

Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Heinrich.a »

Linus_Sch wrote:
Thu Oct 06, 2022 11:53 pm
So I'm not the youngest enthusiast around anymore! :D



The way that RPL works with units, that was key to saving time and brainpower for me, and it still is! Custom menus with the right units and physical constants for the task can be a very big help. I think it was something like half an hour on a 5 hour exam for me, quite often. Less looking up numbers in books. Any number you need more than once you save, put CRDIR on a key to stay organized while keeping it quick.



Hm, I got slightly side-tracked there. Was there any wish for a new SwissMicros product in there? Yes, RPL somehow, yes that's old news...

I'm very curious about one thing: what does the DM42, the DM41x, the DM32 and the 43s project look like to you - who way more recently than myself discovered it all? How do they compare, which one gives you more of an urge to splurge on it? What features not found on any of these would give an even stronger urge to part with the kind of money that they do cost?
Oh i forgot to mention units in my wall of text earlier..I agree! That was actually one of the first things i wanted to figure out was how to work with units, and i think i figured it out in under a minute.. Its very intuitive and consistent. But to answer your question.

My current Swissmicros option is either a 42 or a dm15. Ive tried the 43s as a simulator and immediately knew it wasnt for me. I need my basic functions like sqrt and trigs avaible without looking at a menu. Im a person who always makes misstakes and click the wrong buttons.. Thus i need as few clicks as possible to get what i want. I do like the voyager style and think a dm15 would be more than enough for me but i also do like expandability, stuff like Logan Wests resistor color to ohm converter program is things that i find "nice to have" but at the same time theres no actual need for it as i would probably have the computer right next to me.. And for the rest of the calculators you mentioned, i cant really say, have not had the time to look into them yet. But preferably i would actually be as booring as many others here, a blank calculator with custom overlays, support for multiple roms via the "community" and an extra set of buttons below the screen. That way i would be able to have an fast 48 but also be able to tryout a 42 etc..
Linus_Sch
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Linus_Sch »

Take a look at Logan's video on the DM32, and study the faceplate of the 32sii a little while. Let us know what you find ;)

This image brought to you by an image search and a South-african second hand listing, https://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/2380132 ... lator.html
Image
ben.titmus
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by ben.titmus »

Disclaimer: I help a little on the WP43 project, so I have my bias!
Heinrich.a wrote:
Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:22 pm
Ive tried the 43s as a simulator and immediately knew it wasnt for me. I need my basic functions like sqrt and trigs avaible without looking at a menu. Im a person who always makes misstakes and click the wrong buttons.. Thus i need as few clicks as possible to get what i want.
There are definitely different calculators for different users. But I'm not sure I follow that the 42 would be a good fit if you want basic functions without menus, since the 42 has most functions behind menus. If you want a more basic scientific calculator I think the DM32 will be a good option. Having said that, the WP43 is very customisable and you can put whatever functions you want wherever you want them. Of course it's difficult to change the labels on the keys, but it's quite easy to print a bezel. In addition, you can easily set-up the "default" menu (MyMenu) to contain whatever functions you want.

In fact, the WP43 does have most functions very easily accessible, with only a few hidden away deep within menus. The most obvious is that all the trig functions are contained in the TRI menu. But this is not really a complicated menu, and you can always reassign these functions or put them in MyMenu.
Heinrich.a wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:41 pm
So what actually got me hooked on RPN was that i could get a 40 dollar device, which allowed me to test RPN for real(compared to emulators) and i dont think im alone about that.
I seriously doubt that SwissMicros have the volume of sales to produce a $40 calculator without losing money (at the moment). In fact they have three hardware platforms (DM1x, DM1xL, DM4x, although this will be a bit different when the DM32 is launched) which they reuse with different keyboards and cases. This makes it much more cost effective. (HP did the same thing.) It is relatively easy to produce software emulators to give a "good enough" testing platform. You're right that it isn't as good as a cheap RPN calculator would be, but I'm not sure that such a device is feasible at the moment.
Heinrich.a wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:41 pm
But also, now when i have tried both rpn and rpl, i would really say that rpl is more intutive for the younger aduience(guessing based on my own experience) and also showing the full stack is important. Having a commandline as an extra x register is really convient when learning instead of pushing up the stack after doing an operation and typing in new inputs also how it handles objects and texts its really easy to get into. Its actually crazy for me to realize how consistent the UI is, most new rushed tech has waaay to much inconsistent behaviour in the UI compared to what HP did with their calculators.
RPL is more than just units, an infinite stack, and UI features. Many of the UI advantages of the RPL calculators can be found on the WP43 (and to some extent on the DM42 and DM32). In fact graphing isn't unique to RPL since the WP43 (taken mostly from the C43) also does a number of graphs. I'm sure if there's some useful UI feature that is missing on the WP43 then we'd want to know. The thing that separates RPN from RPL is really the programming language. And there I'm not sure it is more intuitive for any audience. (Don't misunderstand me here. I actually really like RPL but it's definitely not easier to grasp than keystroke programming.)
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dm319
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by dm319 »

Really interesting thread.

I agree that producing a cheap RPN/RPL calculator would be the hardest thing for swissmicros to do. I've dealt with niche products in other areas, and tooling costs make cheapness impossible. A lot of general consumers don't realise this and will complain that a specialist/enthusiasts device is over-priced for its technical specifications, but aren't aware you need to sell probably millions to get a competitive price with regular school calculators.

But I think this a big problem, a chicken and egg situation. I agree that even a basic scientific modern RPN/RPL calculator should show a lot of the stack as that is reassuring to new users that the stack is changing in the way they would expect it to.

The other calculator I would like to see is one with some kind of interface to a modern programming language. Something I could airdrop/usb drag and drop script.py/script.R/script.jl and run on the device. Probably at the other end of the calculator spectrum!
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Heinrich.a
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Heinrich.a »

Linus_Sch wrote:
Sat Oct 08, 2022 6:51 pm
Take a look at Logan's video on the DM32, and study the faceplate of the 32sii a little while. Let us know what you find ;)

This image brought to you by an image search and a South-african second hand listing, https://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/2380132 ... lator.html
Image
I get what your saying Linus but at the same time i dont.. What does the 32sii have that the 42 dont? The unit conversions between metric and imperial is nice, but quite useless to me, i live in Sweden and use metrics only, id much rather have cm3 to dm3 etc. Im curious about the x?y x?0 buttons, i guess those use the solver function? will look into those. But otherwise it has the exact same features as the 42 except that the 32sii looks better with two shift layers :mrgreen:
ben.titmus wrote:
Sun Oct 09, 2022 12:02 am
Disclaimer: I help a little on the WP43 project, so I have my bias!
Heinrich.a wrote:
Sat Oct 08, 2022 3:22 pm
Ive tried the 43s as a simulator and immediately knew it wasnt for me. I need my basic functions like sqrt and trigs avaible without looking at a menu. Im a person who always makes misstakes and click the wrong buttons.. Thus i need as few clicks as possible to get what i want.
There are definitely different calculators for different users. But I'm not sure I follow that the 42 would be a good fit if you want basic functions without menus, since the 42 has most functions behind menus. If you want a more basic scientific calculator I think the DM32 will be a good option. Having said that, the WP43 is very customisable and you can put whatever functions you want wherever you want them. Of course it's difficult to change the labels on the keys, but it's quite easy to print a bezel. In addition, you can easily set-up the "default" menu (MyMenu) to contain whatever functions you want.

In fact, the WP43 does have most functions very easily accessible, with only a few hidden away deep within menus. The most obvious is that all the trig functions are contained in the TRI menu. But this is not really a complicated menu, and you can always reassign these functions or put them in MyMenu.
Heinrich.a wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:41 pm
So what actually got me hooked on RPN was that i could get a 40 dollar device, which allowed me to test RPN for real(compared to emulators) and i dont think im alone about that.
Heinrich.a wrote:
Wed Oct 05, 2022 8:41 pm
But also, now when i have tried both rpn and rpl, i would really say that rpl is more intutive for the younger aduience(guessing based on my own experience) and also showing the full stack is important. Having a commandline as an extra x register is really convient when learning instead of pushing up the stack after doing an operation and typing in new inputs also how it handles objects and texts its really easy to get into. Its actually crazy for me to realize how consistent the UI is, most new rushed tech has waaay to much inconsistent behaviour in the UI compared to what HP did with their calculators.
RPL is more than just units, an infinite stack, and UI features. Many of the UI advantages of the RPL calculators can be found on the WP43 (and to some extent on the DM42 and DM32). In fact graphing isn't unique to RPL since the WP43 (taken mostly from the C43) also does a number of graphs. I'm sure if there's some useful UI feature that is missing on the WP43 then we'd want to know. The thing that separates RPN from RPL is really the programming language. And there I'm not sure it is more intuitive for any audience. (Don't misunderstand me here. I actually really like RPL but it's definitely not easier to grasp than keystroke programming.)
First of, nice work on the WP43, the layout seems very efficient, the trig menu is good, but for me its really hard to be quick with it, i could probably work in some muscle memory but while going between solving something on paper then looking at the calculator to find where each function is on the screen gets confusing quick, but its probably due to my brain not liking to switch out of problem solving mode and back.

I found that keystroke programming felt very naturual once i learnt the basics of rpn. For example i had a good time typing in a program on my 12c that would solve this equation using diffrent values stored in the calculator. Image
It was quick and effective, but at the same time if the calculator has a built in solver like the 32 and 42, 48(need to admit ive only used the solver on the 48, im assuming the solver is easy to use on the 42) etc doing basic stuff like that and solving for diffrent variables so for that usage its quite redundant. Ive yet not built nor read bigger programs but i will look into that further. I do understand that RPL both as userRPL and sysRPL is more fullblown programming languages which both has its drawbacks and pros, do you have any example when you think a RPL program is harder/takes longer to write compared to a RPN keystroke program? Excluding basic equation solvers like my example above.


And also a question to both you and @Linus_Sch
Why spend roughly the same amount of money on a dm32 instead of a dm42 if there is no nostalgic or emotions to any of the two calculators?
Linus_Sch
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Re: Collection of wishes for future SwissMicros products - discussion following Bob Prosperi's HHC 2022 talk

Post by Linus_Sch »

Heinrich.a wrote:
Sun Oct 09, 2022 11:03 am
I get what your saying Linus but at the same time i dont.. What does the 32sii have that the 42 dont?

<snip>

And also a question to both you and @Linus_Sch
Why spend roughly the same amount of money on a dm32 instead of a dm42 if there is no nostalgic or emotions to any of the two calculators?
Very interesting. I did not say what to look for because I was curious about whether you had picked up on this or not. It is perhaps not easy enough to spot!

Versus the 42, the advantage of the 32 is what it does not have: menus that scroll or nest. All the menus in the 32 are single level, a maximum of 6 items, so that all items in a menu are directly visible and accessible when opening that menu. This makes for a very different experience compared to the menus on a 42 or an RPL calculator. And a much larger share of all functions are not in menus at all.

On the flipside of that, what it does have over the 42s is something that people can rightfully be of either opinion on: two shift keys, much more information on the faceplate. You did find one aspect of this, discoverability - you asked about functions that are logical tests that can be used in programming. In the 42s you would not have seen the existence of these until you opened the programming functions menu and scrolled to its second page (or read the manual, or read a program that uses them).

To me, these differences makes the 32 easier to use and more immediate than the 42. Much like a Voyager. Not nearly as far towards the advanced end of the calculator scale. Finally, the 32 and 42 shares what is (according to me) the first major advantage that can be had over the Voyager series: readable programming instead of keycodes. The SwissMicros versions share the second: visibility of all levels of the stack.
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