48SX vs 48GX (long)
Message #9 Posted by James M. Prange on 8 Apr 2004, 10:15 p.m.,
in response to message #7 by Brian
I guess I'd call the 48SX color scheme white primary labels on the
keys themselves, with orange and medium blue for the shifted labels,
on a dark brown background.
For the 48GX, the primary labels on the keys themselves are still
white, but the shifted labels are sort of medium purple and medium
blue-green on a dark blue-green background.
Yes, I know there are special names for the colors, but I never did
find much use for all of the 16 colors in my Crayola box.
I suppose that some might consider the 48GX color scheme to be more
"aesthetically pleasing", but what matters to me is how easy it is to
read the labels, and the 48SX is definitely easier. With the 48GX, the
purple labels in particular don't contrast enough with the background.
I don't need a calculator to be pretty, I just need it to be useful.
Offhand, something like white, fluorescent orange, and neon blue on a
black background might be my first try for a functional color scheme.
Or maybe white, black, and neon blue on a fluorescent orange
background? Well, I guess I'd settle on good contrast, but not
dazzling colors or contrasts, which I suppose describes the 48SX
pretty well.
But I wouldn't decide based on the colors alone. After all, once
you've become accustomed to a particular calculator, you pretty much
know where the keys are, even without carefully reading their labels.
The 48GX is noticeably faster than the 48SX.
The 48GX has better display contrast than at least most 48SXes. I
believe that the improved display was added near the end of 48SX
production. I've read that very late model 48G series have an even
higher contrast display, but haven't actually seen one.
Some functional improvements to the EquationWriter were made near the
end of 48SX production, most noticeably to backspacing (painfully slow
on my 48SXes), and I believe improvements to plotting and solving
speed too. These are in the last ROM version, J, of the 48S series. Of
course they're also in the 48G series, which started with ROM version
K. If you intend to use these much, the 48GX may be the better choice.
The 48GX has 128KB RAM built-in, compared to the 48SX's 32KB, and in
slot 2 it can take up to almost 4MB compared to the 48SX's maximum
128KB there. On the other hand, with the 48SX you can merge the RAM
from both slots with system RAM, but with the 48GX, only the RAM in
slot 1 can be merged with system RAM, so the maximum merged system RAM
on a 48GX is about 32KB less than on a 48SX.
The 48GX has both a flag browser and a character browser which the
48SX lacks; I find them useful.
The 48GX has what they call "parallel" processing with lists.
Basically, use each element of a list as an argument and return a
list, or with matching list sizes, use corresponding elements from the
lists as arguments. Also there are commands for summing or multiplying
all elements of a list. It does save some steps in a program, but
"parallel" is perhaps inaccurate; I find it at least as fast (when
executing the program) to use a loop to process list elements and
accomplish the same things, which I believe is exactly what the
so-called parallel list processing really does.
Most of the 48SX equation library, an add-on ROM card, is built-in
with the 48GX, but not the periodic table. Later versions of the
equation library ROM card have a Tetris game, which also didn't make
it into the 48GX ROM.
The 48G series has several new commands. For me, perhaps most useful
are the commands for inserting, deleting, or re-arranging rows or
columns in matrices.
The 48G series has several built-in input forms (on right-shifted
keys), perhaps useful when several parameters have to be set for what
you what to do, but I sometimes find them more of a hindrance than a
help. The regular menus are on the left-shifted keys.
Most UserRPL programs for the 48S series (and even the 28 series) work
just fine on the 48G series. One thing to watch for are global names
that match command names on the newer calculator. Another thing is
would be that some commands, particularly with the 48G series'
enhanced list processing, actually behave a little differently.
Libraries and SysRPL programs for one series may or may not work on
the other, due to some changes in the entry points and a different
memory management scheme.
Overall, I've come to prefer the 48GX to the 48SX, but I do think that
they took a few steps in the wrong direction too.
But I expect that anything I've ever done on a 48GX I could also
accomplish on a 48SX, although sometimes using more steps and ending
up with a bigger and slower program.
Perhaps the biggest problem for me is switching back and forth among
the various calculators. I have the 28C, 28S, 48SX, 48GX, 49G, and
49g+, and although they do have a lot in common, they're different
enough that I have to think about where the various keys and menus are
on the particular calculator that I happen to be using, and which
commands are available with it.
Oh, I have a 16C too, but I use that only for working with "binary"
integers, and even for that, the RPL calculators usually suffice for
my purposes.
Regards,
James
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