RPN in education

General discussion about calculators, SwissMicros or otherwise
SharpTack
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Re: RPN in education

Post by SharpTack »

I just want to say thank you for this great forum. I found a solution here on forum.swissmicros.com for my issue.
fridlmue
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Re: RPN in education

Post by fridlmue »

I used the DM42, previously HP-35s in all of my exams so far. Due to it optics both never got questioned. I took care about the Wallpapers on the DM42 for sure. And I never tried cheating with them by adding programs. So it was clean when I used it in exams.
HP-41cx, HP-35s, DM42
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OlidaBel
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Re: RPN in education

Post by OlidaBel »

Hi,
I was "educated" on a HP-11C (thanks Mother, she was teaching mathematics and showed me how to use this incredible calculator), and loved it. Other calculators already existed of course. In my class there were maybe 1/3 HP and the rest was casio/sharp/TI.
HP's were popular because there were great, "special", programmable and almost nobody has a computer at home (circa 1986). Those HP's were expensive and not necessary to complete your secondary school cursus, like a bit overkill for the job.

My two children were given "Casio fx92B Colleg 2D+", not expensive at all, easy to use, a bit of symbolic fractions, you can buy it in any supermarkt, between vegetables and pasta ;-)
As i can remember, probably less than 20 € (+/- 20 $US).
I've just check how it work today, some key labels are gone :( but it works (well).

Are there today affordable HP models for school for the masses ? I don't know.

Only the (future) geeks/scientific students could be interested by HP calculators, but it takes time to master those calculators, students are often very busy on their Mac/PC, linux, Python and other C++ stuff.
Do you have students at home knowing this situation ?

I left engineering studies a long time ago, how is the situation today ? Do students use complicated calculators ? I don't know.

(the new "Think different" could be today "I'm an HP" ! :D :D )
---
Olivier
48GX, Prime G2, 50G, DM15L, DM42, 28S, HP 15c CE
fridlmue
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Re: RPN in education

Post by fridlmue »

OlidaBel wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 1:53 pm
Only the (future) geeks/scientific students could be interested by HP calculators, but it takes time to master those calculators, students are often very busy on their Mac/PC, linux, Python and other C++ stuff.
Do you have students at home knowing this situation ?

I left engineering studies a long time ago, how is the situation today ? Do students use complicated calculators ?
No, people don't. Most of stuff that is more than simple + - * / is done by mentioned python (numpy), sometimes Matlab and some visualization tool on top of that. Also reading files or input data, making charts etc. is super easy with that tbh. Also CAS and Graphic Calculators are substituted by that most of the time.

For exams etc the mentioned Casio or the Casio fx-991 is widely used. Features are enough and not programmable. What is useful for exams for sure is the x*pi or sqrt(n) display. That's what I miss most on the current RPM models.
HP-41cx, HP-35s, DM42
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OlidaBel
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Re: RPN in education

Post by OlidaBel »

yes, indeed. Numpy also :)
I recently discovered an iPhone app, Geogebra, a graphing tool very impressive.
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Olivier
48GX, Prime G2, 50G, DM15L, DM42, 28S, HP 15c CE
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Walter
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Re: RPN in education

Post by Walter »

fridlmue wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:52 pm
For exams etc the mentioned Casio or the Casio fx-991 is widely used. Features are enough and not programmable. What is useful for exams for sure is the x*pi or sqrt(n) display. That's what I miss most on the current RPM models.
With the 43S, you can get x*pi...
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
fridlmue
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Re: RPN in education

Post by fridlmue »

Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 4:31 pm
With the 43S, you can get x*pi...
Sure, but for the last presence/offline exams I didn't want to go with a dev firmware and a lot of stickers on my keyboard ;)
HP-41cx, HP-35s, DM42
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Walter
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Re: RPN in education

Post by Walter »

fridlmue wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 10:27 pm
Walter wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 4:31 pm
With the 43S, you can get x*pi...
Sure, but for the last presence/offline exams I didn't want to go with a dev firmware and a lot of stickers on my keyboard ;)
Understandable. Just wanted to spend you some hope. 8-)
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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OlidaBel
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Re: RPN in education

Post by OlidaBel »

fridlmue wrote:
Tue Mar 30, 2021 2:52 pm
What is useful for exams for sure is the x*pi or sqrt(n) display. That's what I miss most on the current RPM models.
Simple questions : what is "x*pi" or "sqrt(n) " ? Is there another meaning than what I suppose ;) ?
You typed "RPM", I suppose it's RPN...?
---
Olivier
48GX, Prime G2, 50G, DM15L, DM42, 28S, HP 15c CE
elgarak
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Re: RPN in education

Post by elgarak »

The problem with the Casio, Sharps and TIs (the non-programmable/non-graphical kinds) nowadays is that they're pretty tailor-made for school. They do the problems given in (secondary) school, but not much else. It's frustrating to me when you hit the numerous walls where they stop doing things. And the Casio FX-991 in particular was developed so much towards making the witchcraft runes of maths relatable to the average student that the user interface suffered. Keyboard layout is not nice, the UI is overly complicated, and it took me often more time and brain effort to enter some problems than writing a program on one of the HPs/DMs.

Not that I see any change. Let's face it, there's not a big market for stand-alone calculators except in secondary school -- maybe a bit university -- regulated by the authorities (no general purpose computing device because of cheating). If you're out of education, you can use apps on the smartphone (including very nice HP-like RPN apps) or a full-blown CAS on the PC. So there's not much calculator manufacturers can do but to make cheap junk with not much development work in UI.
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