30b programming environment Message #1 Posted by Don Shepherd on 11 Jan 2010, 5:27 p.m.
OK, the 30b is out and will probably be available in a couple of months. While it is a financial calculator, it is programmable, like the 12c. It certainly has more capability than the 12c, but there are some things for an RPN programmer to watch out for. Here are a few of its features:
- Programming commands are printed on a plastic overlay that may be placed over the top four rows of keys. These commands are entered by holding down the shift key while pressing the corresponding key, and they are only effective in program edit mode while entering your code (except R/S, of course, which has its usual meaning in run mode).
- Any of ten user programs can be assigned to any key--shifted, unshifted, or shift+hold (with a couple of exceptions). This gives you a lot of flexibility in running your programs.
- Subroutines - Call/Return, big improvement over the 12c.
- Text prompts, another big improvement over the 12c.
- Solver. Not programmable, but you actually write a small program to use it.
- Conditionals, 6 of them. This will take some getting used to for the RPN programmer, because they don't work like other RPN programmable calculators. ?< means y<x here, not x<y. You'll have to be careful when adapting code from other calcs to the 30b. These tests don't use the traditional "do if true" rule; they use GotoT and GotoF based upon the condition code set by the conditional statement and placed on the stack. GotoT and GotoF pop the condition code off the stack before transferring.
- Indirect addressing of 100 registers (shared with stats and cash flow). R0 = index, accessed via RCL DATA and STO DATA (or RCL/STO Cashfl).
- Ten regular registers, 0-9. STO/RCL arithmetic with all 10, 290 bytes total program space, but STO 1 takes 2 bytes and STO + 1 takes 3 bytes.
- You can step-execute your code one line at a time while debugging, and you can goto a label while editing.
- SIN/COS/TAN for you engineers.
- The ARM is FAST!!
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