HP Forum Archive 20

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Switched from 48G to 50G and need shortcut to RAND function Message #1 Posted by Travis (Kansas) on 26 July 2011, 7:51 p.m. So I received a 48G in High School for Christmas in 1992 and it got me through engineering courses in college and has served me well for the better part of two decades. It started flaking out a few months ago and sadly couldn't be fixed with fresh batteries like in the past. My wife though is super-awesome and did the research to buy me a new 50G for my birthday. I enjoy the new things in can do, as well as the familiar stuff that the old 48-G did. My only complaint is that my work requires the use of a random number generator and while the 50-G has it (in several places!), it requires several keystrokes to get there. On the 48G, I could go to Math mode, choose probability, and then just hit F4 any time I wanted to spit out a random number. If I needed 8 in a row, I could just hit F4 and 8 random numbers would be in my stack. Can anyone suggest a faster way to achieve the same thing on the 50G? I tried HP customer support, and they suggested this forum (because supporting their own products isn't a good business model?). Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Re: Switched from 48G to 50G and need shortcut to RAND function Message #2 Posted by Norris on 26 July 2011, 8:12 p.m., in response to message #1 by Travis (Kansas) Quote: On the 48G, I could go to Math mode, choose probability, and then just hit F4 any time I wanted to spit out a random number. If I needed 8 in a row, I could just hit F4 and 8 random numbers would be in my stack. On my 50G, I get to the RAND function as follows: Left-shift (white arrow key) MTH (P key) NXT (L key) PROB (A key) Then RAND is F4 (D key) and you can hit it as much as you like, as on the 48G. I think this is basically the same approach that you used on the 48G, but it may take one or two extra keystrokes on the 50G (don't have a 48 for comparison right now). ********** If it seems like the 50G requires too many keystrokes to reach the RAND key, you could make a custom menu that included the RAND function (and any other functions that you might want quick access to). Then you could bring up the custom menu, with your desired functions, at any time with: Left-shift (white arrow key) CUSTOM (H key) ********** If that still seems like too many keystrokes to reach the RAND key, then you could try writing a program does nothing except run the RAND function: << RAND >> Save this program as a variable named: Rand (You can't call it RAND because that name is already used by the function) Then you could bring up a list of variables at any time with one keystroke: VAR (J key) This should display an F-key labeled "Rand", which will run the program (and therefore the RAND function) every time you hit it. However, this approach will not be as effective if you accumulate lots of variables (i.e. more than 6) in the current directory. In this case, the VAR key may not show the "Rand" variable at first. You would have to push NXT (the L key) to scroll through all the variables until "Rand" shows up. Edited: 26 July 2011, 9:00 p.m.

Re: Switched from 48G to 50G and need shortcut to RAND function Message #3 Posted by NateB on 26 July 2011, 9:15 p.m., in response to message #2 by Norris You can also assign << RAND >> to a specific key that can accessed by putting the 50g in USER mode. For example, << RAND >> ENTER 44.0 ENTER ASN Would assign RAND to the SYMB key (4th row,4th column, unshifted = 44.0). When the calc is in USER mode, you'd only need press the SYM key. See Ch.20 of the HP 50g user's guide for more on customization.

Re: Switched from 48G to 50G and need shortcut to RAND function Message #4 Posted by Allen on 26 July 2011, 10:14 p.m., in response to message #1 by Travis (Kansas) Quote: I tried HP customer support, and they suggested this forum.... That's funny!! Not sure why they would suggest forum > manual?

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