HP or Texas? The difficult decision.

The Museum of HP Calculators

HP Forum Archive 19

HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #1 Posted by Saile (Brazil) on 28 July 2009, 6:52 p.m.

"The document is an old Science & Vie article (circa 1980) though. In French, of course."
Thank's Gerson
Link Megaupload (PDF)

Edited: 29 July 2009, 11:15 a.m. after one or more responses were posted

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #2 Posted by Garth Wilson on 28 July 2009, 7:36 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Saile (Brazil)

This does not appear to have anything at all to do with calculators. Is this spam??

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #3 Posted by Paul Dale on 28 July 2009, 7:42 p.m.,
in response to message #2 by Garth Wilson

Download the link and you get a document about calculators. There is a 30 second delay to encourage subscription but after that it is good.
- Pauli

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #4 Posted by Gerson W. Barbosa on 28 July 2009, 8:06 p.m.,
in response to message #3 by Paul Dale

The document is an old Science & Vie article (circa 1980) though. In French, of course.
Gerson.

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #5 Posted by Garth Wilson on 28 July 2009, 10:03 p.m.,
in response to message #4 by Gerson W. Barbosa

Unlike the first time, the page now says it has reached its 10-download limit, and I can't download it. I did get it just before I posted above however, and there was nothing on it about calculators.

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #6 Posted by Thomas Radtke on 29 July 2009, 6:32 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Saile (Brazil)

I don't bother downloading a PDF if there's no other content in your message except that link. But I'll answer the message title: The dicision is difficult only if you don't know what you want. The features offered by HP and TI calculators are not secret, manuals and additional information are available online.

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #7 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 29 July 2009, 9:42 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Saile (Brazil)

Saile, can you upload the file again. Its no longer available. Or can someone who has already downloaded the file put it somewhere else? (e.g. MegaUpload.com, where I have an account). I'll be happy to host it on my site if I can get it.

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #8 Posted by Marcus von Cube, Germany on 29 July 2009, 11:44 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Saile (Brazil)

I've uploaded the document to my site:
http://www.mvcsys.de/download/Sience_et_Vie-748-Hewlett_ou_Texas.pdf

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #9 Posted by Arnaud Amiel on 29 July 2009, 11:51 a.m.,
in response to message #8 by Marcus von Cube, Germany

Thanks, just read the last paragraph and the conclusion is that the TI is more accurate and the hp easier to use...

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #10 Posted by Don Shepherd on 29 July 2009, 12:21 p.m.,
in response to message #9 by Arnaud Amiel

Quote:
the conclusion is that the TI is more accurate and the hp easier to use...
Funny, I would think it would be just the opposite.

Re: HP or Texas? summary
Message #11 Posted by marais on 29 July 2009, 2:48 p.m.,
in response to message #10 by Don Shepherd

If you want an executive summary of the article, here you go:
- HP's build quality is superior to TI's
- HP's documentation for the 25 was quite good, the 33's user guide is poor, the 67 not much better, the 34 however is appreciated. The TI documentation, on the other hand, is boring and lacks didactical quality. Clear win for HP, although only because TI's documentation is so poorly written.
- RPN is superior compared to AOL
- RPN programs are shorter: 1 line of RPN equals 1.5 to 2 with AOL
- TI internal precision is 11 decimals, HP seems to be only 8. TI wins in this (quite important) category.
I found the article quite amusing and worth reading.
Andreas
Edited: 29 July 2009, 2:48 p.m.

Re: HP or Texas? summary
Message #12 Posted by Gerson W. Barbosa on 29 July 2009, 3:49 p.m.,
in response to message #11 by marais

Quote:
- TI internal precision is 11 decimals, HP seems to be only 8. TI wins in this (quite important) category.
Nice article, but perhaps the author did not put the calculators to the right tests. What calculators would perform better in Savage Benchmark, for instance?
http://www.hpmuseum.org/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/hpmuseum/archv016.cgi?read=103356
Regards,
Gerson.
-----
HP calculators don't perform well in repetitive tests, like squaring 1.0000001 27 times (see link below - results in the first column, %errors in the next one) because the results are rounded to the number of digits in the display (internally the computations are carried out to 2 or 3 more guarding digits though).
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~li6s-ysmr/argovent/argove6.html
Edited: 29 July 2009, 4:44 p.m.

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #13 Posted by Garth Wilson on 29 July 2009, 4:19 p.m.,
in response to message #8 by Marcus von Cube, Germany

Thanks Marcus. I can finally see it. What I saw in my first download effort which I mentioned above was unrelated. French is my third language and I can't read it nearly as fast as English, but I'm anxious to get to it when I can give it the time.

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #14 Posted by hecube on 29 July 2009, 5:58 p.m.,
in response to message #1 by Saile (Brazil)

Oh boy... I remember that issue of Science & Vie and I remember reading that article when IT CAME OUT!
I'm old...

Re: HP or Texas? The difficult decision.
Message #15 Posted by Philippe Lasnier on 30 July 2009, 6:07 a.m.,
in response to message #14 by hecube

Gosh. Science & Vie No 748 Jan/1980... I may even *have* it ;-)

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