HP Forum Archive 05

[ Return to Index | Top of Index ]

Simulator modification Message #1 Posted by Reed Figley on 17 Jan 2001, 5:52 p.m. I'm a structural engineer. I have to add and subtract a lot of feet and inch dimensions in my work. You can buy a cheap calculator that does this, but not one in RPN. I am not a programmer, so I am hoping somebody has already thought of this. I'd like to have a Java simulator where feet and inches can be entered from the computer keypad. Ideally, the feet and inch and fractional units would be seperated by two decimal points in succession. For instance: the expression 5'-3 1/2" + 4'-10 9/16" + 1'-6" = 10'-2 1/16" would be entered like 5..3..8 <enter> 4..10..9 <+> 1.5 <+> producing 11.8.1 as the answer. Wouldn't that be nice? By the way, Paul Lutus' Arachnocalc (http://www.arachnoid.com/lutusp/calc/index.html) is a great simulator, but won't do what I want it to do. Can anybody help me? Please send replies to feedrigley@hotmail.com Reed Figley Boise, Idaho

Re: Simulator modification Message #2 Posted by Jeff Brower on 17 Jan 2001, 8:40 p.m., in response to message #1 by Reed Figley I've found a great rpn freeware calculator that will do this. It's called Excalibur, you can find it here: http://sota.softseek.com/Education_and_Science/Math/Calculators/Review_12971_index.html If you have trouble do a quick search for "Excalibur calculator" Regards, Jeff

Re: Simulator modification Message #3 Posted by Jeff Brower on 17 Jan 2001, 8:43 p.m., in response to message #2 by Jeff Brower Sorry, I jumped the gun, it takes .. as fractions only, no feet... but it's still good software!

Re: Simulator modification Message #4 Posted by Reed Figley on 18 Jan 2001, 5:03 p.m., in response to message #3 by Jeff Brower Thanks anyhow, it's a great piece of software! Maybe I could coax a modification out of its author. Reed

Re: Simulator modification Message #5 Posted by Paul Brogger on 18 Jan 2001, 11:56 a.m., in response to message #1 by Reed Figley Using my browser, I obtained all the components for the Jave HP-25 simulation that's been available at the MoHPC site, and played around a bit. I think I understand the code and how it works, and it should be possible to modify the .GIFs (or whatever -- I can't remember just now) to change the keyboard layout. I'll chase it down and take another look. (If you know anything at all about Java, you could do the same yourself -- I'm a programmer, but this is the first big piece of Java I've ever looked at.) I can't promise responsiveness, as I'm really busy right now, so maybe this post isn't worth all that much!

Re: Simulator modification Message #6 Posted by Reed Figley on 18 Jan 2001, 5:06 p.m., in response to message #5 by Paul Brogger After graduation, I promised myself I'd never program again! But I love a challenge. If you make any headway in doing something with that code, I'd appreciate it. I'll even beta test it for you!! Thanks again, Reed

Re: Simulator modification Message #7 Posted by Matthew Riehl (U.S.A.) on 19 Jan 2001, 1:12 p.m., in response to message #1 by Reed Figley There is a really nice calculator that adds, subtracts, divides, multiplies all kind units including feet, inches, yards and metrics. You can download it at: http://www.cast-db.com/archCalc/ConvertUnit1.0.sit.bin Hope this helps. Matt

[ Return to Index | Top of Index ]

Go back to the main exhibit hall