RPN option for school children

General discussion about calculators, SwissMicros or otherwise
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Calambres
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by Calambres »

dm319 wrote:
Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:39 pm
redglyph wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 10:39 am
If you look at an RPL program objectively, it's a entangled mess.
I agree, never have I seen or written such unreadable spaghetti code as trying to implement something on the HP-42s.
The HP-42s was/is not an RPL machine.
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Walter
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by Walter »

dm319 wrote:
Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:39 pm
redglyph wrote:
Thu May 25, 2023 10:39 am
If you look at an RPL program objectively, it's a entangled mess.
1. I agree, never have I seen or written such unreadable spaghetti code as trying to implement something on the HP-42s.

2. But I'm not referring to programming. Nor even the order. More the concept that you apply the function to the data you see in front of you. When you press 'divide', you see the two numbers you are dividing turn into the result. That is an intuitive feature of RPN.
(Numbers added.)

1. The HP-42S features keystroke programming which is spaghetti code but readable. RPL is said to be structured but is absolutely unreadable and contraintuitive IMO. YMMV

2. Yes in principle but applies only to calculators displaying two stack registers at least. Nearly all adepts of RPN who praise it today, however, have learned it on calculators featuring one output row only. Conclusion: these users had/have brains. :ugeek: They didn't need a second stack level displayed.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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dm319
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by dm319 »

Calambres wrote:
Fri Jun 09, 2023 1:44 pm
The HP-42s was/is not an RPL machine.
Ah my bad, I overlooked that!
Walter wrote:
Fri Jun 09, 2023 4:27 pm
Conclusion: these users had/have brains. :ugeek: They didn't need a second stack level displayed.
I break out in a cold sweat if something disappears from my view on the stack for longer than a few seconds. After a while I stop believing the number even exists.
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Garth
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by Garth »

I've used RPN since 1986.  It was very natural to pick up, and I really, really like it.  I have not used RPL; but I started using Forth in about 1990, and I see that RPL looks a lot like Forth.  I have heard the "unreadable!" criticism of Forth countless times over the years, and I've seen an awful lot of unreadable Forth source code; but I must stress that I blame that on the programmer, not the language.
http://WilsonMinesCo.com (Lots of HP-41 links at the bottom of the links page, http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html )
redglyph
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by redglyph »

That remains a small niche for engineering and scientific students though.

Other students don't usually need a calculator on the field, and it's more natural for them to enter the numbers and operations as they see them on paper when they're at school, then they keep that habit for later. When I see how they proceed, it's almost as efficient: "10 + 30 + 40 =", they can check the result, then they divide it by 3, for instance.

If you have to explain to kids that, instead, they should punch "10 30 + 40 + 3 /", that'll confuse them. It's already hard enough for many of them.
fra04
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by fra04 »

Hello everyone!
I'm an 18-year-old guy living in Italy. I've joined this community since the first days of May, because I wanted to learn more about the fabulous world of programmable calculators that I recently discovered. As a science student, I've used for five years until now an old calculator, a Casio fx-3600p. You know better as me that this pocket calculator features an algebraic system, but, as "chris185" wrote before, old Casio's imput system is pretty similar to RPN: apart from "+-x:", all the other calculation functions can be used in the same way as in HP calculators.
Now this machine is almost gone and I need another one. I borrowed many different calculators from my classmates to try them: they all feature a new algebraic system, where numbers and functions can be entered as they are wrote on the paper, using parenthesis. I can't figure out how they prefer this system to do quick calculations, but I understand well that, probably, I'm the only one among current students that still like the old way of entering numbers.
Probably RPN calculators will not find their niche in classrooms anymore, but I like them because of their speed of use and because they represent to me a hobby like computer programming, due to their advanced programming capabilities.
That said, I'm here to learn from you how these calculators work, and I thank you for reading my post and for answering my questions in other threads!
DM42, Emu48, Emu71.
redglyph
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by redglyph »

Nice to see there are still new students who prefer the RPN system, @fra04. :)

On the subject of learning about those calculators, you should have a look at https://www.hpmuseum.org if you've not already been there.
fra04
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by fra04 »

Yes, I've read something in this website, which is really well organised and understandable by newbies like me! However, I haven't registered yet, but I'll certaily do, as I saw that many of you are also there!
Now that I took the final exams for this year (finally!), I have the entire holidays to read and write in these forums. Thank you very much again!
DM42, Emu48, Emu71.
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dm319
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by dm319 »

fra04 wrote:
Sun Jun 25, 2023 5:08 pm
Now this machine is almost gone and I need another one.
As Red Glyph said - great to hear that future generations see the benefit of RPN! Are you planning to do further study in fields that need calculators? And what are you thinking of getting?
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fra04
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Re: RPN option for school children

Post by fra04 »

Thank you dm319 for your post! I agree with you all about RPN being the best way of entering numbers in a calculator and also programming it. I've studied in a scientific high school for five years and, altough I've dealt not only with scientific subjects, but also with Italian, English and Latin literature, philosophy and so on, I much prefer maths and physics. Next year I'm going to start my experience in university with physics. If I remember correctly, there are two physicians here in the forum (Bill and Walter) and I would be interested in their experiences in studying and working.
Anyway, I'm pretty aware of calculators not being so necessary in theoretical physics (maybe in labs they play a more important role), but I like Swissmicros' ones because they feature RPN and programming capabilities. Now that the summer holidays are finally here, I'm trying to choose my future calculator. However, the choice is really difficult: DM42 enthralls me because of C47 and WP43 compatibility, but also DM41X seems very interesting to me for the history of HP-41C, for having the +-x/ keys on the left and for featuring synthetic programming added to the standard FOCAL paradigm.
Last but not least, the upcoming HP-15C Collector's Edition is extremely interesting, with its beautiful and original design, which never dies. It has less capabilities than the calculators I've mentioned just before, but it can do everything I'll need in the following years.
If you had any type of suggestion, I would really appreciate it!
Thank you for reading this long post!
DM42, Emu48, Emu71.
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