WP43 News

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

Post by chr yoko »

Thanks you Walter !
Nice progress since my last tests.

8-) Just Discover the DISP menu with China/EUROPE/INIDA ... USA display formats : great idea ! :geek:
DM41L SN01063 - DM42 SN05658 - DM15L SN20438 - DM41X SN00173 - DM16L SN04449
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

For your information, there are now about 79% of all planned functions implemented today. Thanks to Benjamin, Martin, and Mihail! Please download and browse CATALOG'FCNS to see what's accessible.

EDIT: (Almost forgot) CETERVM CENSEO: Whatever weird or unexpected results you find, please tell us.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Just for the record: the 43S is going to feature 126 unit conversions -- 14 angular conversions, 18 dealing with specialties like times, light years, parsecs, dezibels, etc., 18 from and to Chinese units, and 76 to and from ... guess what ... British Imperial stuff.

122 are implemented already. Feel free to test them.

BONUS: You can even compute Bessel functions now (pssst: the Commodore M55 featured this in 1976 already). :shock:
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

Uploaded a new wp43s.exe for you. This simulator app includes all the 126 conversions now. Try and enjoy! :D
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
kfarmer
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Re: 43S News

Post by kfarmer »

So, to kinda set expectations here (since as I just learned about this project a week or two ago)...

"Scientific" is a bit of a catch-all term, given the breadth of just the physical sciences alone and the different approaches each take toward computation. What is the specific target audience for this device? Engineering? Applied Mathematics? I saw the Bessel function's was added, so to me it feels in-between.

FWIW...

My background was astrophysics (which means obviously I'm not working in the field and instead do software engineering for a living). I started on the 32S, personally, though I played around with my father's 16C (mine's arriving in the next few hours), and quickly moved up to the 48SX and GX, where I used more than four levels of stack, and made good use of symbolics and graphing and SysRPL (both of which I made better use of than wrestling with Mathematica). The idea some have expressed here and elsewhere of graphing calculators being "mere toys for high schoolers" and "only good for games", is a provincial, no-true-Scotsman attitude even though I understand where it comes from, given how the big three calculator brands have marketted those features.

Certainly I'm not snagging a 43S for the sort of computation I was doing 30 years ago -- I'm interested more in the nostalgic sense of "given HP's starvation of the calculators department/duo, where is the community going to pick up?". Frankly the devices here look amazing, hardware-wise, which is why a DM42 is on the way, and I have a bit of hope for the future of serious calculators.

I know what my perfect calculator would look like, and PocketCAS on an iPhone (nor my old Nokia 1520) isn't it, nor the 50G, nor the Prime. If I had the time (and the device the storage capacity) I'd probably be investigating how to port XCAS or Python w/ SymPy (etc) onto something like one of these, fronting it with the 28/48/49/50's stack and types. Because me and my cohorts *were* the type to use graphing and to go past numerics.
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

"Scientific" is meant like in "scientific calculator". Feel free to check the function set. You'll find it's pretty sufficient for engineering, physics, computer science, and the first two year of mathematics at least. If you miss anything, don't hesitate to tell me.

Before you ask: a CAS will not be implemented.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
kfarmer
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Re: 43S News

Post by kfarmer »

I wasn’t going to suggest you do so, certainly not when you’re near shipping. Twenty years of shipping software does give me realistic views about such things. (I’d rather let Parisse write the CAS, and let others (as they’ve done) simply focus on how to host it. I’m being urged to do so, myself, but who has the time?)

I think we have somewhat different views of what is sufficient for physics, which is closer to pure and applied mathematics than what I’d call engineering: My 32S was good for high school, but would have been very limiting in university — driven entirely by the fact that we were dealing mostly with analytical solutions, with occasional numerics and graphing, and definitely blowing past four levels of stack when we got to the fun stuff (probably what you might consider third year and beyond of calc and diffeq).

As I said, I’m looking forward to the 43, and had already been going through the manuals and watching the videos on YouTube showing it off. But I think I see who you’re aiming this at, and that’s cool. I was simply surprised to see functions I’d not associate with the traditional, numerics-only, calculator. To some degree it makes me wonder where things go next.
ben.titmus
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Re: 43S News

Post by ben.titmus »

You might want to look at the newRPL project if you haven’t already. For me WP43S is a continuation of the RPN style and newRPL is a continuation of the RPL style. Personally I love both. You can use newRPL on a 50g and it works fine providing you don’t expect all the features to be implemented yet. You can use WP43S on a DM42 and it works fine (with similar provisos). However, I would say that the 43S is much closer to being “finished”.

I know I’m not alone in wanting a SwissMicros hardware newRPL calculator, but I think that will be some time if it ever happens (the newRPL team are mainly trying to port to the HP Prime at the moment). A SwissMicros 43S is actually possible now provided you’re happy attaching an overlay and stickers to the keys.
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Walter
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Re: 43S News

Post by Walter »

kfarmer wrote:
Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:47 pm
I think we have somewhat different views of what is sufficient for physics, which is closer to pure and applied mathematics than what I’d call engineering
Being an experimental physicist by profession, I'm a bit biased. I concur theoretical physics is very close to mathematics indeed.
kfarmer wrote:
Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:47 pm
I was simply surprised to see functions I’d not associate with the traditional, numerics-only, calculator. To some degree it makes me wonder where things go next.
What did surprise you in particular? In the WP43S is not much more than what's implemented in the WP34S since 2011, maybe just 10%.
WP43 SN00000, 34S, and 31S for obvious reasons; HP-35, 45, ..., 35S, 15CE, DM16L S/N# 00093, DM42β SN:00041
kfarmer
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Re: 43S News

Post by kfarmer »

There’s a gap for me between the 49 and the 50. Releases in between I missed. Third party homages I just discovered.

As for the surprise: functions more interesting than trig, exponential, and logarithmic functions. Bessel isn’t something I ever expect on a (late 80s) scientific calculator, and numeric integration and solvers are pushing it somewhat yet my 32 had those. But then I never saw it in undergrad physics and math either, and it’s reasonable to assume I just don’t know an obvious use for it (or forgot).
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