Programming fun Message #5 Posted by Patrick on 26 Sept 2003, 4:17 p.m., in response to message #4 by Valentin Albillo
Yes, Valentin, I applaud your attitude, even if I sometimes have trouble in exercising it myself. My first HP, that wonderful little HP-25 I bought way back in 1977, permanently polluted my view on life. That machine was so amazing for its day, so well engineered, so comfortable to use, and so challenging to use to its limits, that HP made something of a devoted little kitten out of me. Oh, the shame of it.
I share your love of exploring the programmatics of these machines. In fact, it is the real reason I became a collector. I have very few non-programmable machines in my collection (of course, HP made relatively few of them if you look back in history).
Right now, for instance, I'm working on a version of the SOLVE function for the HP-11C (only, what... 20 years too late?!). I am trying to be as faithful as I can to the original algorithm described by William H. Kahan in his December 1979 article in the HP Journal. Obviously, it is a challenge to fit such a sophisticated algorithm into the rather limited resources of an 11C, but for me that is the fun of it. I have a working version that implements most, but not all, of the secant method refinements described in the article. However, I am not yet happy with. It currently leaves only 39 program steps for the definition of the function to SOLVE, and is somewhat arcane in its implementation (a result of trying to squeeze the code, I think). Perhaps once I'm more happy with it, I'll follow your lead and submit an article to HPCC.
Best regards,
Patrick
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