Re: RPL challenge: Just for the record Message #16 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 18 Feb 2004, 4:34 a.m., in response to message #14 by Karl Schneider
Hi, Karl:
Karl posted: "You may remember that I acquired a 71B a few months ago, but the Math ROM has proved
elusive during my half-hearted searching."
You should resort to a full-hearted searching, then. Trust me, having a 71B without its Math ROM is tantamount to capital sin, they belong together. The whole 71B operating system and CPU are optimized for math computations, and that potential is brought up to its full realization by having the Math ROM plugged in at all times. With it in place, there's no better numeric cruncher: incredible power AND extreme ease of use.
You can have much faster handheld hardware nowadays, but they won't include neither the extreme ease of programmability and use that BASIC affords, nor will many of them (PDAs and such) feature the incredibly powerful math algorithms that the 71B/MathROM does. Not to mention the fact that it's the one and only IEEE math fully compliant handheld computing device out there, to the best of my knowledge.
So, my heartfelt advice: get a Math ROM, *now* ! Myself, I own three, but then I've also got three HP-71B to plug them in. :-)
"I would have had my answers to this straightforward, practical problem much faster with less mental effort on any of the RPN models I listed, due to
the ease of conceiving and keystroking the program. In my hands, even the 34C would have left the 49G+ in the dust.
I trust your word, but then you'd surely agree that my one-liner for the 71B is absolutely straightforward: if you've had a look at it, it's essentially:
Area = Integral(Root(0,1,f(x)),Root(2,3,f(x)),precision, f(x))
Nothing, not even the quickest RPN program by the most skilled RPN programmer (such as yourself) could be faster or easier not to mention "intuitive", don't you agree ?
Best regards from V.
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