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New High-End HP Calculator?
mschaef writes "There's a pretty convincing looking story over on hpcalc.org describing a new high-end HP calculator. The bottom line: 75MHz ARM9, USB Port, IrDA compatibility, 128x80 display, and a slot for SD cards. It also looks like the same basic software is running, either ported or via emulation of the venerable Saturn (HP-propriatary) CPU. The full story is over at HPcalc.org. It's good to see HP back in the game (hopefully) like this."
Cue the linux port project ;-)
Great, but can I treat it like a hammer, and still have it work? You know, grab it, punch out a few calculations, and toss it aside without much care where it lands.
Hmm... I doubt it'll be allowed in exams or tests if it's got infra-red capabilities.
People might find it all to easy to chat and exchange answers on the sly if their calculators can communicate silently.
Last.fm - join the social music revolution
With PDAs becoming faster and more capable, is there still a market for plane calculators? Palm (and others) must have tons of (free) software to do the same with your PDA.
Is it time to go to this one yet?
No... I'm still doing fine with my old 28S
Help find a cure for Gidget.
That is still the ultimate "nerd" calculator. Came in a zipper pouch, had a slot for expansion cards, and like all decent calculators worth their circuits, used Reverse Polish Notation.
I remember many an hour wasted in class playing Columns or Arkanoid or Crazy Cars.
Before there was Palm Pilot for looking like you were doing work, there was the HP48GX!
MMORPG fan-boy? Prove your worth
I wonder why not use a PDA with better screen and resolution, faster processor (300Mhz, or more), more applications. The remaining factor is that is there a graphics calculator application that is as powerful as an HP cal (or more powerful).
The price, well, I think you can get a $200 PDA that is more powerful than 75Mhz.
After all, the HP cal may have the processor optimized for heavy engineering task (and other heavy math task). Also, it has buttons just for calculator. So this may be the deciding factor.
What do you think?
I'll be much happier when they add a CF slot [even better if it replaces the SD slot.]
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
...only builds better idiots. I almost fell out of my chair three weeks ago when my professor said we are not allowed to use calculators in his Calculus II class.
And while I would not exactly say I am doing good in his class at this point, I am learning and just plain realizing things that I should have learned eons ago. The problem was that it was always more convenient to mash the keys on a calculator than to just think.
... at least until some vendor provides mathematical sofware for the PDA.
The software in todays calculators are capable of pretty advanced mathematical opererations, including advanced calculus, matix operations, statisics and complex math. Until sombody creates an equally good mathematics software suit for PDA's these things will still be around.
Another thing is QA. How are we to be sure that some program we downloaded to our PDA does the calculations correctly. When you buy an advanced calculator you can be pretty confident that the different mathematical functions has been thoroughly tested. Since the key sellingpoint of a calculator is the ability to, well, calculate, the vendor has probably gone to some effort to ensure that it is infact capable of doing that correctly.
Scitne aliquis remedium potimum crapulae?
The only thing that's successfully competed with TI calculators has been computer algebra systems (you can get a good, cheap CAS program like Derive -- another TI product, by the way -- for $99 for the student version and $199 for the professional version) and PDA scientific calculator programs. Existing hardware and software is more flexible and less expensive than this new HP. So if this isn't intended for the student market, I wonder who it is intended for, and if it'll actually sell once it's out.
I have found in several situations that the CAS, while a bit slower, can come up with a correct answer to a complicated transform that causes a TI89 to barf and quit. It can effectively calculate factorials up to about 250!, which I think is very neat (if not all that useful). The equation writer is incredible - it's like entering equations in Mathcad, easy to see what they ~really~ look like, and quick too. Clock, calendar and on-board help menus are very useful as well. RPN always adds mucho score points. Too bad it defaults to algebraic out of the box...
My biggest complaint is in the ROM - only the latest (non-HP approved) ROM revision fixes the more serious bugs, like random garbage collection delays, in the calc's OS. There's also the standard complaint about the sucky rubber keys, and the annoying screen design & resolution. Speed isn't too bad - the general code is optimised well (much of it was taken from the 48 series).
This new addition appears to fix all, or nearly all of the mistakes that were made with the 49G. I look forward to reading reviews of use.
Maybe I'm jumping the gun a bit, but it looks as though I may add a new RPN machine to my collection soon.
I could care less about almost all of the speces except one: does it use Reverse Polish Notation ? I couldn't find the answer in the article. There's a reason that the HP12C is still one of the - if not THE - dominant calculator in the world of finance (indeed, AIMR requires CFA candidates to use it or a single type of TI calculator on their exams), and that reason is RPN. (I know it's not because of speed because it is up to 10 times slower than the TI calculator which costs a fraction of an HP 12C).
TI calculators are dominant in schools.
And that's all they're good for. They are piddly toys for students.
The HP 48GX, despite being far older and slower than the TI-92, is dominant in engineering. At my company, there are two types of calculators people use: HP 48s and PCs running Matlab. I have NEVER seen an engineer here using a TI.
Even in my high school, almost everyone who was planning on going into engineering disciplines bought an HP48. As to your comment, "And part of this is HP's fault -- when the TI-92 came out, a colleague of mine was at a math teachers' conference and asked HP if they had anything coming out that could compare with it, and their answer was a resigned "Nope"."
Then why did at least two people I know in high school buy TI-92s, only to replace them one year later with the *significantly older* HP-48? The TI-92 sucked. It was a monstrosity that was DOA in the education market because it had a QWERTY keyboard and hence was not legal on any standardized tests. The HP48 was legal on most tests if you blocked its IR port, and most proctors didn't even bother checking that. (It was widely known that the 48's IR receiver was very weak and only good for calc-to-calc communications of 6" or so. There's an ongoing debate as to whether this was done for power savings or to keep the calc test legal.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
If only HP had kept the HP48 keyboard layout on the HP49 I wouldn't have deserted. Seems the new model seems to be following the same pattern.
The number one reason that a PDA won't replace a calculator is that a touchscreen is a piss-poor substitute for real buttons with travel and tactile feedback ("click", but that doesn't sound as high-tech). I have a Handspring Visor and have downloaded and used multiple calculator apps on it. Some of them are damned good, but I always turn to my trusty HP 32SII for anything more than a handful of calculations.
I remember coveting a 38D (or two) in high school.
Geez, I'm sorry. It is a Monday after all.
--- Ban humanity.
What's wrong with PocketPC? I actually tried using one, for a calculator as well as in general, and the answer is that a lot is wrong. The big issue is, of course, no keypad. Fast, efficiant data entry is impossible on the very tiny PPC screen tapping with a stylus. A calculator that takes two hands and visual focus on the screen (instead of the information you are entering) to use is virtually useless for many applications.
The PPC also has issues of reliability with fairly delicate hardware contrasted with much tougher (mainly due to simplicity) calculators. The calc is instant on, and never requires closing apps to free enough memory or even the 3 seconds to switch to the calculator app. Battery life is another issue. Most PPCs will only give you around 4 hours of heavy use, and with the models I have been issued can be an optomistic estimate. They also require frequent charging. When you use a calc a lot, you can't wait a few hours for charging after you've been using it a while.
For a person who uses a calculator a couple of times a month, there are excellant emulators on the PPC (and one on PalmOS, where someone could get a faster seeming, sturdier device with much longer battery life to run it) that could substitute. For anyone who uses a calculator for serious work in school or in their job, it just isn't up to the job.
Oh, and it is profitable. The HP12C is the standard calculator in the financial industry (though TI is making inroads, finally), sells for $70, and the design hasn't changed since 1981. They make stacks of money off that one. Calculator hardware can be profitable, it just has to be the perfect tool for the job.
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!