The Museum of HP Calculators

HP Forum Archive 13

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hp 15c
Message #1 Posted by glenn sasser on 4 Nov 2003, 11:10 a.m.

I am looking to reset this calculator to the floating dismal?

      
Re: hp 15c
Message #2 Posted by Thibaut.be on 4 Nov 2003, 12:33 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by glenn sasser

The "floating decimal" does not exist on the 15C, neither on all pre-1990 calculators.

The only choice you can make is on the number of decimals, wich is selected by f FIX n, f SCI n, or f ENG n, where n is the number of decimals.

The default value of n is 4

            
Floating decimal
Message #3 Posted by Karl W. Schneider on 5 Nov 2003, 1:40 a.m.,
in response to message #2 by Thibaut.be

Thibault wrote:

Quote:
The "floating decimal" does not exist on the 15C, neither on all pre-1990 calculators.

If "floating decimal" (Glenn Sasser, the original poster, erroneously wrote "dismal") refers to the calculator's showing only the minimum number of decimal digits (rather than a fixed number) to represent a value to best-possible accuracy, then at least several of the Pioneer scientific models can do so. The 42S and 32Sii and 20S, released prior to 1990, have an "ALL" display mode. Don't know about the 21S and 27S...

However, I remember in the early '70s when "floating decimal" had a different meaning. One low-end 4-banger Commodore calc from that era had a slide switch for power and display mode -- off/no decimal/2 decimal places for monetary arithmetic. Otherwise, the user had to keep track of decimal places, slide-rule fashion. The true floating decimal was a later innovation...

                  
Re: Floating decimal
Message #4 Posted by Holger S. on 5 Nov 2003, 2:27 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Karl W. Schneider

My 27S, made in 1988, has an 'ALL' mode.

                  
Re: Floating decimal
Message #5 Posted by GE (France) on 5 Nov 2003, 4:28 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Karl W. Schneider

Another odd beast is one of the Sinclair Cambridge line (I think the 'Scientific'), which doesn't have a 'dot' key, it is always assuming you type a mantissa with one digit before the decimal point. For example, to type 0.15 you'd type [1] [5] [E] [-] [1], weird !!

                  
Re: "Floating dismal"
Message #6 Posted by Paul Brogger on 5 Nov 2003, 5:37 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Karl W. Schneider

I dunno . . . "floating dismal" sounds perfectly appropriate in other contexts.

For example, the "4" key on my 49G+ . . .

      
Re: hp 15c
Message #7 Posted by Richard Garner on 4 Nov 2003, 12:38 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by glenn sasser

The original setting for the 15C is FIX 4. I think it went f key, 7 key, then 4 key . Or it could be 4 Enter, f key, then 7 key. It has been awhile and I no longer have a 15C or manual to look at.

            
Re: hp 15c
Message #8 Posted by Thibaut.be on 4 Nov 2003, 1:42 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Richard Garner

The correct setting is f FIX (up the 7 key) 4

                  
Re: hp 15c
Message #9 Posted by Richard Garner on 4 Nov 2003, 5:15 p.m.,
in response to message #8 by Thibaut.be

It has been over 10 years sense I used a 15C. It's good to know that I still can remember some of the operations off of the top of my head.


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