HP Forum Archive 17

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Large HP 35s picture Message #1 Posted by Seth Morabito on 10 July 2007, 1:50 a.m. Thanks to Joe Horn's HHC2007 website, now we've got a very up close and personal view of the HP 35s (1119x2054 pixels!) http://holyjoe.net/hhc2007/hp-35sLarge.jpg He's such a tease!

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #2 Posted by HrastProgrammer on 10 July 2007, 5:04 a.m., in response to message #1 by Seth Morabito After a long time of HP-49G+/HP-48GII/HP-33S/.../HP-50G uglyness, I must admit that I actually like this one very much ... Edited: 10 July 2007, 5:04 a.m.

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #3 Posted by brianh on 10 July 2007, 7:42 a.m., in response to message #1 by Seth Morabito Two please. Hold the user's guide.

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #4 Posted by NACHO on 10 July 2007, 9:43 a.m., in response to message #3 by brianh http://www.calculatrices-hp.fr/35s.html great machine.

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #5 Posted by Patrick Rendulic on 10 July 2007, 6:05 a.m., in response to message #1 by Seth Morabito Thanks for the picture! It does look nice! It's just a pity that it is not switched on! It would be interesting to see the working display. I just wonder why HP designers / technicians are unable to make the difference between left / right, top / bottom ...

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #6 Posted by DaveJ on 10 July 2007, 6:29 p.m., in response to message #5 by Patrick Rendulic Quote: Thanks for the picture! It does look nice! It's just a pity that it is not switched on! It would be interesting to see the working display. Yes, I'm curious to see what the exponent display is like. HP have done some shockers in this area, like the 20S with it's large "E" which blends in very nicely with the other digits, you have to study the display closely to see if your answer has an exponent or not. Dave.

Exponent display Message #7 Posted by Karl Schneider on 10 July 2007, 8:56 p.m., in response to message #6 by DaveJ Quote: Yes, I'm curious to see what the exponent display is like (on the HP-35S). HP have done some shockers in this area, like the 20S with it's large "E" which blends in very nicely with the other digits, you have to study the display closely to see if your answer has an exponent or not. There's no reason to expect it to be different from the HP-33S display, with its individual dot-matrix characters. As for the full-size "E" denoting a base-10 exponent on the HP-20S and HP-21S: With a uniform 12-digit 7-segment display, that was the only reasonable approach other than the one employed on all previous models, which was to right-justify the (two-digit) exponent on a 10-digit display. "1.234567E-123" was deemed preferable to "1.234567 -123" or "1.2345678-123". Not all would agree. The original HP-32S also used a full-size "E" and centered exponent sign, even though it had a more-versatile dot-matrix character display. Two small refinements were provided in the HP-32SII: A reduced-size "E", as well as a raised negative-exponent sign to distiguish it from a minus sign used in equations. -- KS Edited: 10 July 2007, 9:05 p.m.

Re: Exponent display Message #8 Posted by DaveJ on 10 July 2007, 9:11 p.m., in response to message #7 by Karl Schneider Quote: There's no reason to expect it to be different from the HP-33S display, with its individual dot-matrix characters. As for the full-size "E" denoting a base-10 exponent on the HP-20S and HP-21S: With a uniform 12-digit 7-segment display, that was the only reasonable approach other than the one employed on all previous models, which was to right-justify the (two-digit) exponent on a 10-digit display. "1.234567E-123" was deemed preferable to "1.234567 -123" or "1.2345678-123". Not all would agree. I certainly don't agree. It's Ok when you have a negative exponent like "1.234E-3" as the minus sign makes it stand out. But positive exponents just get buried like "1.234E5" (it's worse on the LCD screen), it's just awful, a really bad design decision IMHO. An underscore would have been much better, like "1.234_5", or a small "L", or anything except "E"! That, and the fact that there is no dedicated exponent key are my only two gripes with the 20S. All the same I currently use it as my daily calc at work. Dave.

Exponent display: explanation & other methods Message #9 Posted by Karl Schneider on 11 July 2007, 10:06 p.m., in response to message #8 by DaveJ Quote: It's Ok when you have a negative exponent like "1.234E-3" as the minus sign makes it stand out. But positive exponents just get buried like "1.234E5" (it's worse on the LCD screen), it's just awful, a really bad design decision IMHO. An underscore would have been much better, like "1.234_5", or a small "L", or anything except "E"! I agree with you that "1.234E5" is not very legible on 7-segment displays; I preferred the original method (used on all 10-digit models) of one or more blank characters separating the mantissa and the exponent, with an exponent minus-sign occupying one of those separators. Perhaps the intent for the Pioneer series was to utilize that generally-understood display method of Fortran, C, and other languages to represent exponentiated numbers using an "E". This was certainly reasonable for the mid-grade and high-end Pioneers featuring dot-matrix displays, so it was simpler to do the same for the low-end Pioneers (HP-10B, HP-20S, and HP-21S) with their 7-segment displays. However, "1.234E5" is more legible in standard alphanumeric fonts than in 7-segment displays, due to curvature of the numerals. Also, a display utilizing spaces between a mantissa and exponent would be impractical for compiled code, because of difficulty in parsing. Casio models typically display an exponent using two smaller, elevated digits at the far right of the display. This renders some of the display space unavailable, however. -- KS

Re: Exponent display: explanation & other methods Message #10 Posted by ECL on 11 July 2007, 10:22 p.m., in response to message #9 by Karl Schneider Dave commented on the problem with the 12.34E-5 convention for the case when the exponent is positive (12.34E5). I'd suggest the simple (edited out: simply) and uniform solution would be to use this: 12.34E+5 for positive exp 12.34E-5 for negative exp This is the convention followed in some engineering packages that I use/used. ECL :) Edited: 11 July 2007, 10:24 p.m.

Re: Exponent display: explanation & other methods Message #11 Posted by DaveJ on 11 July 2007, 10:52 p.m., in response to message #10 by ECL Quote: Dave commented on the problem with the 12.34E-5 convention for the case when the exponent is positive (12.34E5). I'd suggest the simple (edited out: simply) and uniform solution would be to use this: 12.34E+5 for positive exp 12.34E-5 for negative exp This is the convention followed in some engineering packages that I use/used. ECL :) Yep, no problems with that. It visually breaks up the exponent nicely. I like that better than a space. Dave.

Re: Exponent display: explanation & other methods Message #12 Posted by DaveJ on 11 July 2007, 10:34 p.m., in response to message #9 by Karl Schneider Quote: I agree with you that "1.234E5" is not very legible on 7-segment displays; I preferred the original method (used on all 10-digit models) of one or more blank characters separating the mantissa and the exponent, with an exponent minus-sign occupying one of those separators. Perhaps the intent for the Pioneer series was to utilize that generally-understood display method of Fortran, C, and other languages to represent exponentiated numbers using an "E". This was certainly reasonable for the mid-grade and high-end Pioneers featuring dot-matrix displays, so it was simpler to do the same for the low-end Pioneers (HP-10B, HP-20S, and HP-21S) with their 7-segment displays. However, "1.234E5" is more legible in standard alphanumeric fonts than in 7-segment displays, due to curvature of the numerals. Also, a display utilizing spaces between a mantissa and exponent would be impractical for compiled code, because of difficulty in parsing. Casio models typically display an exponent using two smaller, elevated digits at the far right of the display. This renders some of the display space unavailable, however. -- KS Yes "E" is a perfectly normal and excepted way to represent an exponent, no problems there. But it should never be used on a 7 segment display unless there is a space before the "E", but then you waste an extra digit. I prefer the Casio displays, having the exponent as smaller raised digits. Very sensible and very obvious to look at a glance. I do like the raised and centered "E" on the 42S though. In fact I much prefer the fixed location of an exponent with the digits filling up right to left as on the Casios. I've always thought the left-to-right display which HP uses to be not as good. It means your attention is always darting back and forth around the screen which I find a tad more annoying. Dave.

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #13 Posted by Les Bell on 11 July 2007, 3:45 a.m., in response to message #5 by Patrick Rendulic Quote: Thanks for the picture! It does look nice! I very much agree. Just one thing that could have made it nicer, and an added nod to the original 35: if the name Hewlett-Packard, the model number and the HP logo had been on the bottom-front edge of the machine. That would have been so nice! Best --- Les [http://www.lesbell.com.au]

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #14 Posted by Walter B on 10 July 2007, 10:04 a.m., in response to message #1 by Seth Morabito For readers in Germany: There is no definite release date for the HP35s in Germany so far (official statement of HP today). More information may be available in September. For the time until then, some folks in the internet may make a bit more ;-)

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #15 Posted by Nenad (Croatia) on 10 July 2007, 2:52 p.m., in response to message #1 by Seth Morabito Just wondering if it will be possible to connect the HP35s to PC in order to save/load programs. Apologize that I did not read the HP35s specification carefully. May we expect the same problem as with the HP42s (a powerful machine, with very limited means for entering a program, i.e. keyboard only)?

Re: Large HP 35s picture Message #16 Posted by Walter B on 10 July 2007, 4:16 p.m., in response to message #15 by Nenad (Croatia) Yes, we may.

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