HP-71B Math ROM (was Re: New DVD/CD Set ...)
Message #15 Posted by Valentin Albillo on 9 Mar 2005, 4:37 a.m.,
in response to message #13 by Mark Hardman
Hi, Mark:
Mark posted:
"As has been pointed out many time before. The HP71B is NOT complete without the Math ROM."
Amen. I'm one of the most insistent people to point out that fact. And it's been my long-time experience that most every program or application benefits from having the Math ROM installed, not just math-related ones. If in doubt, check my articles "HP-71B Math ROM Baker's Dozen Vol.1" (10 pages, featured in the current V24N1 issue of Datafile) and "HP-71B Math ROM Baker's Dozen Vol.2" (8 pages, appearing in the next issue V24N2, due in April). My introduction to Vol.1 says it all:
"Among the many worthwhile plug-in ROMs ever made for the HP-71B1, the
Math ROM is one of the very best. Many of its principal functions and
capabilities were intended to be part of the System ROMs from the very start, but
were sadly left out when it became clear that the total code was going to exceed
the allotted 64 Kb of System ROM space. So, it was excised from internal ROMs
#0 and #1 and placed instead in external ROM #2, all 32 Kb of highly optimized
machine-language code. Yet some leftovers still remain inside the System ROMs,
now mostly issuing polls to the Math ROM code, if present, for it to handle a
number of operations such as those involving complex numbers (which the
mainframe does accept but can’t deal with), and IMAGE statements involving
complex numbers.
All in all, the Math ROM is the one essential addition to any HP-71B system,
extending the already very powerful BASIC programming environment to its
fullest for all things mathematical. As one of its original creators (Steve Abell,
father of CALC mode) once posted when talking about the HP-71B system: “It
had math and stat software to *die* for.”. Indeed. And all later powerful HP
models (such as the 42S and the 48/49 series) have inherited and expanded the
advanced functionality of this incredible achievement in portable math
computing, itself made possible by the previous experience acquired during the
development of the HP-85 Matrix ROM, the HP-75 Math ROM, and the HP-15C
highly-optimized SOLVE and INTEGRATE functionality (originally developed for
the HP-34C !). The best algorithms were extracted and rewritten in Saturn
assembly code, including a large number of refinements (just compare complex
number handling) and additions (such as maintaining IEEE compliance, the one
and only handheld product at the time to offer such).
This article (subdivided into two reasonably-sized “volumes” to make life a little
easier for our kind Editor and readers) isn’t yet another review of the Math ROM
capabilities, that has been done a number of times before and to do it justice
would probably require a whole issue of Datafile or two. Instead, this article
features 13 assorted mini-topics, each of them discussing some interesting or
otherwise novel aspect of choice Math ROM capabilities, from complex numbers
to matrices, root finding, numerical integration, and special functions. I hope
you’ll find at least some of them enjoyable, even intriging, and further, useful to
increase your awareness of the incredible portable computing power the Math
ROM has to offer even today."
Best regards from V.
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