May 2021 Speculations

General discussion about calculators, SwissMicros or otherwise
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Walter
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Walter »

RAPo wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:26 pm
Isb-c is good news. Do you need beta testers?
:lol: Good idea. Altruism at its best. May I queue?
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
Panchdara
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Panchdara »

Get thee behind me Walter!

:P :lol:
Thomas Okken
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Thomas Okken »

Would this new platform have more RAM than the DM42?
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Walter
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Walter »

Panchdara wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:39 pm
Get thee behind me Walter!

:P :lol:
Hey, we were taught English being exemplary in queueing - kindly stick to it!
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
HPMike
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by HPMike »

Michael wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 3:12 am
We will also change the USB socket to USB-C.
Please make sure the USB-C port is flush with the case, so we don't again have problems with the cable connector seating properly.
DM15L, S/N 00548. DM42, SN: 00159. DM41X, SN: 00973. DM32, SN 00054.
reavy
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by reavy »

HP 32 vs 42 vs 41?

It seems like the 41CX was the ultimate calculator in terms of overall functionality and ignoring price. Would I want to buy a DM32 when I already have the 42 and 41X?
Bill K. - USA
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Bill K. - USA »

reavy wrote:
Fri Jun 03, 2022 1:18 am
HP 32 vs 42 vs 41?

It seems like the 41CX was the ultimate calculator in terms of overall functionality and ignoring price. Would I want to buy a DM32 when I already have the 42 and 41X?
A long response . . .

The first calculator I ever got my hands on I remember quite vividly. My father brought it home from work, a sizable corded unit that not only had +, -, *, and /, but also % and square root and one memory register! Can't tell you how many hours I spent sitting at the thing typing in numbers and operations and watching the bright blue LEDs churn out the answers in wondrous instantaneous precision. I was enthralled.

Jump ahead several years to the end of my second year of college. That's when I bought my first scientific calculator: the $200 TI-59, complete with magnetic card reader and library chip (though no constant memory). Over the summer I read the 230-page manual cover-to-cover, learning the calculator backwards and forwards. (Still to this day the number "959"--the maximum number of programming lines--brings to mind the fun I had with that machine.) The next year at college I switched from engineering to physics--and sadly I no longer needed calculators: adding and subtracting exponents was the only calculation I had to do. (The hard math was all symbolic, and at the time there wasn't any option other than doing it by hand.)

At my first job out of college, my employer got me an HP-15C. It was my introduction to RPN and I became an instant convert. I also fell in love with the HP buttons--no more bothersome TI switch bounce! Ten years later when I left that job, I made a dumb mistake: I could've bought the HP-15C and kept it, but instead I saved myself $40. (Stupid.)

More years went by and I wanted to replace that wonderful HP-15C, but the model was no longer available. All the previously-owned ones I saw were expensive and pretty heavily used. But then a few years ago, out of the blue, my wife bought me the HP-15C Limited Edition straight off the production line. I was in heaven! It didn't have the same heft as the original, and the PSE function didn't quite work, but I was delighted nonetheless. Since then I've used it for many years, and am still glad to have it but . . . unfortunately . . . it has developed a switch bounce issue. I now have to visually check the outcome of every single keypress. Ugh.

Earlier this year I learned about SwissMicros. Immediately I ordered the DM42 and DM15L. (I also picked up an HP-50g and an HP Prime on secondary markets.) I tried learning all my shiny new calculators at the same time, but was getting mixed up over the syntax and other idiosyncrasies: RPL/RPN, ENTER functionality/Stack lifts, Stack size, Menu contents, Programming Languages/Modes, etc. So after a refresher on the DM15L and a read-through of the HP-42S manuals, I've been concentrating on learning the HP-50g.

I don't often have to do hand calculations, but I relish having a great calculator on those days that I do. Today was one of those days: my father asked me for some help with a piece of land he was selling--one of the survey stakes had gotten moved and he wanted to find out where it really belonged. He sent me the survey numbers from the plat for his five-sided property (one of the boundary lines isn't documented, as it borders a small lake), so I needed to find the length and azimuth of that undrawn fifth side. I grabbed up my pencil and ruler and protractor and went to work.

First off I discovered the crazy system that American surveyors use: N41deg52minW or S15deg21minE, etc. What a wacky coordinate system. What's wrong with the old orienteering standard of 0 deg being due north, 90 deg being due east, 180 deg being due south, and 270 deg being due west?

Anyway, in the middle of translating all those arcane HMS measurements to a paper sketch, I needed to do several H.MS to H.d conversions. That's where my frustrations began. First I pulled out my DM42, but the HMS functions are deeply buried and not easy to find. Refusing to hunt up the manual, I resorted to the Catalog key and had to paddle through several screens before reaching the HMS+ and HMS- functions. After executing HMS+ once, I then had to paddle through the entire process again to do it a second time. Vexed, I pushed my DM42 aside and pulled out my trusty HP-15C LE. Here the switch bounce was annoying me so I put it aside too and went to the closet to dig out my new DM15L: but the dullness/size of the ink fonts compared with those of the wonderfully legible HP-15C LE had me squinting at it and grumbling. So too did the difference in the Stack-lift behavior of the Enter key (as compared with that of the DM42) and my inability to view the entire stack at a glance. (I didn't pull out my most-recently familiar HP-50g because I knew it'd be a pain too, because the HMS functions are as deeply buried as they are on the DM42.)

Sure, as I was doing my calculations, I could've converted between H.ms and H.d on the calculator by dividing by 60 minutes, but my eyes were already crossing from trying to sort out the coordinate transformation from surveyor azimuths to sensible azimuths, so much so that I didn't want to mentally juggle the H.ms to H.d conversions at the same time. Once I had all my angles converted on my DM15L, I programmed the Law of Cosines into my HP-50g (using the numerical solver) and was able to quickly find all of the angles and sides for all of the inscribed triangles within my five-sided plat. So, after all that hopping around, I finally got my project finished.

The upshot of this is that now I'm thinking I need two "every-day" calculators. My HP-50g (or the WP43, or the HP Prime, whichever I end up choosing) and a second calculator that's simple and quick for basic stuff. So I'm thinking of getting the DM32 (which I wasn't tempted by before). The printed fonts on the DM32 look like they're bright and crisp, and I trust there'll be a lot less burrowing down into menus to find the simpler functions/features one often wants, while also allowing me to see the full stack at a glance and without having to fight switch bounce.

Why would someone want both a DM42/WP43 and a DM32? I've just found a reason . . .
Thomas Okken
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Thomas Okken »

Thomas Okken wrote:
Thu Jun 02, 2022 3:11 pm
Would this new platform have more RAM than the DM42?
Duh, the answer is in the other thread: 768 kB RAM, instead of 128 kB for the current CPU. That would make it an excellent target for Free42, or even Plus42.
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OlidaBel
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by OlidaBel »

Bill K. - USA wrote:
Fri Jun 03, 2022 4:04 am
Anyway, in the middle of translating all those arcane HMS measurements to a paper sketch, I needed to do several H.MS to H.d conversions. That's where my frustrations began. First I pulled out my DM42, but the HMS functions are deeply buried and not easy to find. Refusing to hunt up the manual, I resorted to the Catalog key and had to paddle through several screens before reaching the HMS+ and HMS- functions. After executing HMS+ once, I then had to paddle through the entire process again to do it a second time. Vexed, I pushed my DM42 aside and pulled out my trusty HP-15C LE. Here the switch bounce was annoying me so I put it aside too and went to the closet to dig out my new DM15L: but the dullness/size of the ink fonts compared with those of the wonderfully legible HP-15C LE had me squinting at it and grumbling. So too did the difference in the Stack-lift behavior of the Enter key (as compared with that of the DM42) and my inability to view the entire stack at a glance. (I didn't pull out my most-recently familiar HP-50g because I knew it'd be a pain too, because the HMS functions are as deeply buried as they are on the DM42.)

The upshot of this is that now I'm thinking I need two "every-day" calculators. My HP-50g (or the WP43, or the HP Prime, whichever I end up choosing) and a second calculator that's simple and quick for basic stuff. So I'm thinking of getting the DM32 (which I wasn't tempted by before). The printed fonts on the DM32 look like they're bright and crisp, and I trust there'll be a lot less burrowing down into menus to find the simpler functions/features one often wants, while also allowing me to see the full stack at a glance and without having to fight switch bounce.

Why would someone want both a DM42/WP43 and a DM32? I've just found a reason . . .
Bill ,
I also need to play with hours conversions/additions, it's so easy to put them in the CUSTOM menu (via ASSIGN fn to a key). There are 3 lines available for customs shortcuts, and you call lock it if necessary (select it twice).
Please do learn a bit more the DM42 ;) , you will appreciate it more!

This does not mean that I refuse the other calculators: DM42, DM15L (ugly LCD numbers, yes), and 50G (so complicated and less ergonomic compared to my old 48GX), a Prime also, LOL. Not enough time to master all those beasts. The DM42 is today maybe my favourite real calculator, whereas I prefer to use Plus42 when I grab my iPhone.

Maybe a DM32 will tempt me too, but I don't *need* one.
---
Olivier
48GX, Prime G2, 50G, DM15L, DM42, 28S, HP 15c CE
Bill K. - USA
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Re: May 2022 Speculations

Post by Bill K. - USA »

OlidaBel wrote:
Fri Jun 03, 2022 1:29 pm
I also need to play with hours conversions/additions, it's so easy to put them in the CUSTOM menu (via ASSIGN fn to a key). There are 3 lines available for customs shortcuts, and you call lock it if necessary (select it twice).
Please do learn a bit more the DM42 ;) , you will appreciate it more!
I know I could've done all of what I wanted to on the DM42, but the small passage of time and my reading of other calculator manuals since made the exact process fuzzy and I didn't want to fuss with that in the middle of my project.

Minor drawbacks of the DM42 are . . .
(1) that the alpha letters are also in yellow, so my eyes can't immediately pick out just the above-the-key text,
(2) that some of the basic functions I want are buried in a deeper menu--like rolling the stack up and down, or changing the angle units, or converting polar/rect or h.ms/h.d--which means these basic tasks take more key presses, and
(3) that many buttons have a word above them (written in blocky upper case, which is harder to parse at a glance than lower case is), so if I haven't used my DM42 in a while I have to read each of the words and judge which one is likeliest to contain the function I'm after (instead of rapidly scanning for a readily recognizable symbol).

The DM42 is a good calculator, sturdily built, very powerful, and I'm glad I bought it, but I do find it a challenge to use if I haven't been using it recently. (I'm sure the same can be said for the HP-50g and many other calculators, but less so for the DM15L and, likely, the DM32.)
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