HP Forum Archive 07

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AARRRRG! Stupid !#$@*&! HP-17BII! Message #1 Posted by W. Bruce Maguire II on 8 Jan 2002, 1:25 p.m. Hello all: Last night I was going to write a program on my 17BII to keep it busy for a LONG time. (I was going to run some battery-consumption tests) I found a program for the 28S that computes digits of PI (four digits at a time---don't ask me how or why it works). Well, I thought to myself: "Wouldn't this be a cool way to keep a 17BII busy for a long time---and it would be a productive task too!" I looked at the 28S code in detail. Nothing too fancy. Now, the ONLY apparently tough part would be implementing an analog to an array in the 28S (it needs to be ~3 times the size of the number of digits you want to generate). No problem, right? The 17BII has "SUM" lists! And, I can pick values out of the list for operations...WOW, this might be possible... :-D But, nooooooooo. The HP 17BII is so handicapped, that they don't allow ANY way to put values INTO a SUM list in a program---only get them OUT! !#$@*&! >:-( So, by any chance...Has anyone ever HEARD of any back doors? Anything like the SYSEVAL for the 28S? ANY WAY AT ALL to do what thay didn't want to allow for? I love my 17BIIs, and I enjoy the challenge of programming them, but sometimes it's frustrating when you SEE the potential, but you just can't get there! Any experts out there? Anyone know anyone who might know? Thanks, Bruce. p.s. As it is, the machine is just counting to 10,000,000. How boring and unproductive! ;-)

Bueller...Bueller...Bueller...Bueller... Message #2 Posted by W. Bruce Maguire II on 9 Jan 2002, 12:36 p.m., in response to message #1 by W. Bruce Maguire II Isn't there ANY 17BII guru out there? Am I the only engineer on this list who tries to do things on this calculator? ;-) Thanks, Bruce.

Re: You just might be!!! Message #3 Posted by Ron Ross on 9 Jan 2002, 3:45 p.m., in response to message #2 by W. Bruce Maguire II I will use a 19B on occasion, but only because it DOES have trig functions. I actually prefer the 27s even if it is only algebraic to the 17b (which is RPN selectable). However, I like the 42s best and suspect that you will too. The solver is nice on the 17, 19 and 27, but the 42's multitude of feature (and RAM 8o), make it MY CHOICE!). Upgrade!!! 8o)

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